Join us at this Coffee & Jam where you will first hear from Vanessa Radich who is the Director of People & Culture at Melodics. Having held multiple leadership roles at some of NZ's most successful tech companies, Vanessa will have many lessons to share about how early-stage startups can scale whilst maintaining a strong organisational culture and building a healthy workplace.

Next up, you’ll hear from Julie Ryan who is the Managing Director at Custom D, a Christchurch-based tech agency that has built award-winning apps. Having been at the helm of Custom D since its inception, Julie has plenty to share about the company’s growth journey and how maintaining a healthy company culture has helped them throughout this process.

We’re expecting this to be an awesome session as always. So make sure you come along to be inspired, and meet your startup and innovation tribe!

Meet your speakers

Vanessa Radich
Director of People & Culture @Melodics

Vanessa has held leadership roles within the People & Culture space for some of NZ's most successful tech companies. She was the Global People Operations Manager for Vend, and was the People Experience Lead at Timely (the first P&C hire in their team). She's spent the last two years working in a consulting capacity for earlier stage SaaS businesses alongside her role at Melodics.

Vanessa will be sharing her key lessons to building a great (and scale-able!) place to work for early stage companies

Julie Ryan
Managing Director @Custom D

Julie has been at the helm of Custom D since inception 6 years ago.
She brings a business acumen and electric energy, constantly challenging the team to understand the clients’ objectives and purpose. Having come from an operations and administrative background, rather than IT, helps to bring a different perspective and one that allows her to speak the language of the clients they work with.

Custom D operates with a core premise of trust and Julie has helped to shape a culture where everyone on the team can voice ideas openly, nobody is siloed, and everyone has equal opportunity.

Julie will be talking about what its like to build custom applications for start-ups, including The Student Volunteer Army which recently won Best Hi-Tech Solution for Public Good at the 2021 NZ Hi-Tech Awards.