No 8 Ventures is New Zealand's most experienced venture capital manager. The key executives of No 8 Ventures have extensive experience in commercialisation of technology, sales and marketing, time to market, entrepreneurial enterprise business management and governance, funding, investment banking, company listings and acquisitions and divestments. This broad business background is important for our management style - engaging actively to help young technology companies realise their potential.

Jenny Morel - Managing Partner

Jenny Morel, Managing Partner, founded No 8 Ventures in 1999.

For No 8 Ventures, Jenny has been a director of 13 early stage companies. She is currently Chairman of Martin Aircraft Company, Vertical Composting and Rex Bionics, a director of Open Cloud and Surveylab, and has observer status on the board of Proacta.

Jenny previously founded an investment bank specialising in technology companies, which led to her starting No 8 Ventures - she saw the huge opportunity for investment in exciting young, under-funded technology companies. And she is the founder and organiser of an annual conference for New Zealand high growth companies, Morgo, see www.morgo.co.nz.

Jenny's background was in investment banking in the United Kingdom and New Zealand and she has been a director of a number of large companies: New Zealand Trade & Enterprise, Trust Bank NZ Ltd, AgResearch Ltd, The Rural Bank, Centreport and NZ Rail Ltd. She has also been a director of many smaller companies before founding No 8 Ventures and a member of the Council of the Institute of Directors in New Zealand, the New Zealand Arts Council, the Government's ICT Taskforce and a Trustee of the Hi Growth Project which resulted from that. She is Chairman of the Hi Tech Association which organises the Hi Tech Awards in New Zealand, a member of the Australia New Zealand Leaders Forum and a Trustee of the Jayar Charitable Trust.

For the past several years she has been named by Listener magazine as one of the 50 most powerful people in New Zealand because of the key role of Morgo in the New Zealand technology sector. In 2006, Jenny was made a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to business. Jenny holds a BSc in Human Biology and an MA in Economics (1st Class Honours) from the University of Auckland.

Mark Edwards - Partner

Mark joined No 8 Ventures as Director in May 2002. Prior to this, Mark had a 20 year operational career in the computer industry in the US and the UK spanning the systems, software and OEM sectors.

His responsibilities ranged from sales and marketing to product development, strategic planning, IT and mergers and acquisitions. Most recently Mark was the Senior Vice President at QLogic Corporation (a very successful NASDAQ-100 and S&P500 company) with responsibility for the Computer Systems and Switch Products Groups.

Prior to QLogic, Mark was Vice President, Sales and Marketing for the Storage Systems Division of Unisys. He also held a number of sales and marketing positions with Unisys, DEC and Zitel. For No 8 Ventures, Mark is currently a director of Esphion Ltd, PayGlobal Ltd, English To Go Ltd and EDIS International Ltd.

Mark is a foundation sponsor of the University of Auckland Spark entrepreneurial programme and an advisor to World Vision on Micro Finance. Mark holds a BSc (Honours) in Business Studies from City University, London, and graduated from the Marketing Management Program at Stanford Business School.

Andrew Lark - Partner

Andrew joined No 8 Ventures in 2002, first as an advisor, and then as a part-time executive based in the United States.

Andrew’s 23 years experience of technology, Internet, telecommunications and consumer sectors spans leading award-winning programs and teams for Fortune and Times 100 companies, global brands, start-ups and the world's hottest advertising and communications agencies. During his career he has worked and lived in the majority of the world's major markets and developed a reputation as a highly creative marketer and pioneer of participatory communications and next generation marketing measurement programs. He is a prolific writer, blogger and speaker on marketing.

Andrew is currently VP Global Marketing and Communications for Dell. Prior to that, he was CMO for LogLogic, a Sequoia backed start-up, and he has worked for Sun Microsystems, Nortel Networks and Fleishman-Hillard, the world's largest public relations agency, where he was a senior vice president and partner consulting to global leaders such as Dell, Microsoft, IBM, and Son.

In 2003 the New Zealand Government awarded him the inaugural World-Class New Zealander Award for his contributions to New Zealand. Today he chairs the New Zealand Trade & Enterprise North American Beachhead Technology Advisory Board. Andrew is also a director of AIM listed company, Endace. SiliconValley.com has named him as one of the communicators to watch in Technology and he was named one of New Zealand's 45 most influential business people by Unlimited magazine in 2007. Andrew holds a BA from Auckland University.

Glenn Milnes - Investment Director

Glenn joined No 8 Ventures in early 2007 from Cable & Wireless International, London, where he was Strategy Manager with oversight of corporate and strategy development activities for a portfolio of incumbent and new entrant businesses competing in markets across Europe, the Americas and the Middle East. Prior to this he worked as Group Advisor Regulatory Affairs, for the bank Dresdner Kleinwort Benson in the United Kingdom and for fund manager PFPC International in Ireland. Glenn started his working career as a professional cricketer playing in New Zealand, England and The Netherlands. For No 8 Ventures Glenn is a director of English to Go and an observer on the board of Open Cloud, Rex Bionics and Surveylab.

Glenn holds an MBA (Distinction) in Entrepreneurship from Imperial College London, a BSc in Accounting (1st Class Honours) from Oxford Brookes University and a BPhed in Physiology and Sports Medicine from the University of Otago.

Contact: glenn@no8ventures.co.nz, +64 4 4992029

Brian Leighs - CFO

Brian joined No 8 Ventures on a part-time basis in 2005. Brian has held senior management roles in the telecommunications, energy and information technology sectors. He was one of the founders of 4RF, a microwave radio transmitter company. Brian also serves on the boards of Hautaki Limited, a Maori investment company, Energy Intellect, which makes smart electricity meters, and 2degrees Mobile, New Zealand's third mobile network operator. Brian is a Chartered Accountant, holds a BCA degree from Victoria University and is a member of the New Zealand Institute of Directors.