The Icehouse has governance refresh as its reviews long-term target

Business growth and start-up incubator The Icehouse has added more diversity to its governance with a number of appointments to its board and charitable-based owner.

The new appointments to the 10-person board are South Island businessman and investor Greg Tomlinson who attended The Icehouse's second Owner Manager programme in 2002, Jonathan Reid who is the co-founder of Velocity Made Good and runs its venture investment arm, and investment banker Kerry McIntosh who is also chair of the board of ICE Angels, the country's most active angel network.

Entrepreneur Claudia Batten and LanzaTech co-founder Sean Simpson have both resigned as directors.

Former New Zealand Venture Capital Investment Fund chief executive Franceska Banga is one of three new trustees on The Icehouse's owner, the International Centre for Entrepreneurship Trust.

The other two are Carrfields NZ managing director Craig Carr who is an alumni of the Auckland-based incubator's seventh Owner Manager programme in 2004, and Simon Bennett who is chief executive of listed recruitment company AWF Madison and an alumni of the fourth Owner Manager programme in 2003.

The appointments come as The Icehouse is undertaking a review and refresh of its 2020 target to enable a 10 percent lift in the country's GDP, looking ahead to the next 10 years out.

The Icehouse chair Chris Quin said the new directors bring a diversity of approach and thinking which will be critical for the incubator's on-going performance.

"These talented new directors add substantive real world capabilities and proven track records in facilitating business growth in diverse industries to our already strong board," he said.

David Irving, who chairs the International Centre for Entrepreneurship Trust, said the new board appointments come as the trust has begun widening its charitable giving to youth and iwi and he felt "privileged" to work with a group of business leaders who can draw on different industry backgrounds and have varied skill sets.

Founded in 2001, The Icehouse has both public funding from Callaghan Innovation and NZ Trade & Enterprise and a number of private partners - AJ Park, Bank of New Zealand, Deloitte, Spark, Visa, and the University of Auckland Business School. It has worked with more than 6,000 owner-managers and entrepreneurs and its start-ups have collectively created over 1400 jobs, raised more than $117 million in funding, and generated over $325 million in revenue.

(BusinessDesk)

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