Zephyr History
In 2004 Graeme McInteer, David Joyce and Sonja Campbell founded Zephyr Consulting. Experienced in various facets of the Information Technology industry, they came together to form a company that would provide project and programme support to government and public companies in the Wellington region.
Over the next few years, the company grew from the 3 founding directors to 30 consultants providing a range of capabilities to clients, from business analysis to programme management. Graeme, David, and Sonja believed in the utmost importance of building strong and long-lasting relationships with both clients, business partners and employees, many of which have stood the test of time.
In 2006 Sonja (as planned) left Zephyr to focus on her family and move to Whitianga. By this time a strong client relationship team was in place with Debbie Wheeler and Phil Dunning managing and building Zephyr’s expanding customer base. Zephyr gained a reputation for providing a wide range of services to the IT industry, whether it was Cobol programmers for aging applications, to the latest in web-based design. The team built a large database of skilled consultants and contractors to call upon. Brent Gerrard has led the client relationship team since 2010 and they continue to build both client and consultant relationships to provide support in an ever-changing market.
In 2006 Graeme and David recognised there was a need in the market for technical support services to small and medium-sized businesses. George Nash joined the company to establish a Technical Services team.
Since 2006 under the guidance of George, Fred Alverez, Tony Dorman, and now Jonathan Tay, the group has grown into a fully-fledged Managed Services Provider delivering a total technical support solution to a range of small to medium-sized organisations.
Within the first five years, Zephyr had grown to become a recognised and respected supplier of IT consulting and technical support to the Wellington marketplace. The Zephyr family not only worked well together, but they also enjoyed many social get-togethers, whether at the races, watching the Hurricanes win or having fun at the yearly Zephyr conference. Many clients joined the Zephyr team at these events.
Zephyr under the leadership of Graeme and David evolved as market needs changed. While many organisations needed skilled people to complement their own employees, there were other opportunities to provide outcome-based solutions. David’s programme and project experience, along with his access to skilled people enabled Zephyr to offer complete end-to-end project solutions that met both government and private clients’ objectives and budget.
Many of the small to medium-sized businesses Zephyr had built relationships with were membership-based associations. Many needed software to manage their membership data. In 2016, Zephyr became a business partner of Advance Solutions International (ASI) for the software solution iMIS and has now implemented and supported this application in a range of organisations both here in New Zealand and Australia. The team has also built additional tools supplementing iMIS capability and helping associations better manage their data. Since 2016, the IMIS team has quickly grown to 6 people, first under the leadership of Dempsey Woodley then Jennifer Lee, and now Emma Prestidge.
Sadly, in November 2022 our founding director David died following a short illness. David and his wife Wendy have been a vital part of the Zephyr story. David’s guidance, calm and wise leadership is sorely missed. But as Zephyr heads towards its third decade, the founding principles set by Graeme, Sonja, and David, of building strong and resilient relationships with all their stakeholders will continue to ensure its success in the Wellington marketplace.
