Richard is joining us as an Account Management and Support superstar. His mission in life will be to make sure anyone with questions or concerns is helped quickly and accurately.

Richard joins us from an experienced background working for 4x SaaS companies in the UK and brings a wealth of experience and passion to the team.

Message from the new guy:

“As anyone will tell you, starting a new job is always exciting and daunting in equal measure. Several weeks in and I’m glad to say that the excitement is still there and I already feel well and truly part of the ProWorkflow team.

I have spent most of my time so far updating our Knowledgebase (see Julian’s earlier post) as well as helping our customers with support queries. I’ve already been told by several customers that the quality of support from ProWorkflow has been a big differentiator from other companies and I’m committed to improving standards even further.

As well as focusing on support, I’ll be working with our development team to ensure ProWorkflow meets the evolving needs of our customers. With the launch of our uservoice page we are doing more than ever to add the features that customers tell us are important to them. If you haven’t got involved yet then now is the perfect time to play a part in shaping the future of the ProWorkflow solution.

Just in case anyone who is wondering where I’ve come from, I emigrated to New Zealand earlier this year from the UK with my fiancée. So far we couldn’t be happier with the move, our hopes for a better quality of life are already being realised and New Zealand is feeling like “home” even more quickly than we expected.

Thanks for reading and I look forward to helping you in the future!”

Richard

Here’s a few random facts you’d never have known about Alan…

1. I’m a dedicated family bloke… partner of 15 years to Kim… dad to my two boys Kahn (16) and Jai (13) and daughter Kaya (9)
2. I’ve always had a close affinity with the sea… my father was navigating the seven seas at the tender age of 23 as a captain for Blue Star Line so it’s in the blood.
3. I started my love affair with surfing in 1984 and treasure every moment I get riding waves! I’m really enjoying seeing the joy and excitement my kids are getting from the beach and surfing too! See some of my surf trips on my surfing blog taranakisurfdaze.blogspot.com
4. I uprooted Kim and the kids and moved us all to New Plymouth at the start of 2008. After spending the previous 15 years in New Zealand’s “Big Smoke” – Auckland it was a huge change of pace. So far a good move, especially since New Plymouth is smack-bang in the middle of Surf Highway 45
5. You could say I’m “animal friendly” as I currently feed two teenagers, one pre-teen, two quarter-horses, a cat named Otis, a dog named Scooter (part-time) and last but not least, Dan our 3-legged goat.
6. My best mate is teaching me to play golf and after playing 26 holes I can boast… a straight 220m drive, a par, a couple of boogies and 2 lost balls… as well as some really wild swings!
7. My favourite advice to my kids is “What goes around comes around“
8. The night I met Kim, my partner of 15 years, she was walking into a nightclub and tripped on the doorstep breaking the high heel off one of her shoes. Luckily for Kim I was walking out at that precise moment and she fell into my arms! No bull!
9. Today my daughter and I mountain biked up the Te Henui Walkway and back… twice… first time was at 7am and second was after dinner at 6.30pm. After each ride we went surfing at Fitzroy beach
10. I used to drink WAAAAY too many coffees but I gave up…. now I drink WAAAAY too many cans of Red Bull

Here’s a few random facts you’d never have known about me.

1. I’m a ‘Workshop Guy‘ and spend many hours a week tinkering in my shed building awesome toys and gadgets! I built this years Christmas presents, a rechargeable paddock stereo for Sarah and boat/trailer for Jackson as well as Cookie cutters for the family!
2. Fly fishing is my real passion and I love nothing more than stalking a fat trout up a back country river or lake!
3. My background is 15 years as a creative in advertising, design, 3d and multimedia. This is where I originally saw the need to the ProWorkflow solution.
4. As a fussy creative, I still to this day do ALL of the creative and branding work for www.ProWorkflow.com and always plan to.
5. My dog ‘Daisy’ is a Golden Retriever (fat and blind) and she spends most of the day keeping us company in the office.
6. I’m an avid boatie and last week nearly landed my first 360 on the wakeboard out in the harbour last week. I vow to land one soon!
7. I’m a handyman and have done all renovations to our rural property (fences, kitchen, bathroom, french doors, decks etc) as well as built the single-handedly built and fitted out the ProWorkflow office (including building building all desks and an outdoor area)!
8. I’m very blunt when giving advice – I tend to just tell it as it is.
9. I never start anything unless I am prepared to see it through and never give up once started.
10. I love my wife Sarah and boy Jackson (2yo) and we live on a few acres in the country just outside Christchurch with 2 horses, 6 peacocks, 7 chickens, a dog, a cat and as of last week a pet magpie that adopted us!

So you can safely say that as a CEO of a high tech global software company, I don’t fit the ’standard assumed profile’ as such of an inner city, slick, tradeshow and network attending, VC chasing whiteboard sketching, high profile entrepreneur, however, we are doing well and the fairly relaxed life I lead allows me to spend time coming up with smart solutions and investing in customer relationships.