Senior Management

John Quirk - Chief Executive Officer

John Quirk has an extensive and impressive track record with 25 years experience in the ICT industry.

He has held numerous senior management roles, including Chief Executive, General Manager, Executive Director and Regional Manager positions within a number of landmark companies including Wang New Zealand, Southmark Computers, Mi Services Group and Digital Equipment Corporation.

Prior to joining Howard & Company he was the Asia Pacific CEO of the UK owned IT and management consulting company, Mi Services Group. Previously he was CEO of the PC reseller and network company Southmark Computers where he led its successful merger into Fujitsu.

Before joining Southmark, John was Regional Manager at Wang New Zealand. He spent his early career in Digital Equipment Corporation where he rose to New Zealand Software Services Manager and then Auckland General Manager.

John acts as a senior management advisor and mentor to a number of companies at various stages of development. He has a number of Directorships and is currently Chairman of Axon Systems Limited and SMX Limited. John has also been involved in considerable merger and acquisition activity. He is a Member of the Institute of Directors.

His extensive career with multinational and international companies provides excellent strategic and business planning with the pragmatism and urgency gained from leading smaller enterprises.

John holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Mathematics from Massey University and has participated in International Executive Management Programs run by the European Business School INSEAD while at Digital.

Representing New Zealand in whitewater canoeing in earlier years, John now enjoys adventure racing. He is married with three children.

Tim Lynskey - Vice President Business Development

Tim Lynskey has spent the last twenty years working in a diverse range of sales and sales management roles in New Zealand.

His career began in the commercial sector, where he spent his formative years selling services to a wide range of industries and customers. At 26 Tim was appointed to the role of Wellington Sales Manager for New Zealand Document Exchange, a subsidiary of the Freightways Group. His success in this role led to his promotion to Auckland Sales Manager, and then to the position of National Sales Manager.

Tim’s next role as Northern Regional Manager for Blue Star involved the restructuring of the regions offices while also managing a $37m budget and 52 staff across the region.

After a successful tenure with Blue Star, Tim switched focus to the information technology sector and was quick to deliver in his role as GM Sales for Speech Recognition Systems before spending three years with UK based Rebus Software selling HR/Payroll solutions.

More recently, Tim was employed by SAS where, for a period of three years, he sold complex business intelligence solutions to the finance and commercial sectors.

Tim maintains a keen interest in most sports and recently completed the annual bike ride around Lake Taupo.

Jeff Meyer - Chief Technical Officer

Jeff's career spans over twenty years of engineering and computer science including extensive experience in designing, developing and implementing high value optimization-based computer systems for industry. Jeff is recognized in the aviation industry for his extensive business experience and knowledge of optimization.

Jeff is a founding member of Optima and is an avid evangelist for use of Operations Research in business. His focus is to communicate a vision to clients of the benefits from using sophisticated mathematics in their business.

Dr. Paul Day - Vice President Research and Development

In 1995 Paul received his PhD in Operations Research for outstanding work in the development and implementation of optimized rostering systems for Air New Zealand’s national airline. He has more than ten years experience in airline and transportation industries, and in general staff scheduling and rostering problems. He has successfully developed and implemented several optimization systems for industrial scheduling problems. This includes the pilot and flight attendant pairings optimization software for Air New Zealand, Freedom Air and Ansett Australia.

Paul is a founding member of Optima. Since this time he has worked in a variety of roles including developer, business analyst, implementation manager and client management/support roles; as well as working on general aspects of the business. Paul has worked with various clients in both product implementation/support and consultancy roles. He was involved in the successful implementation of SIREN at the Victoria Metropolitan Ambulance Service in Melbourne, Australia and continues to drive the development of that product as well as research into new ones.

Amanda Day - Operations Manager

Amanda was employed by Air New Zealand for 10 years, first as a member and then as leader of their operations research team. During this time she was responsible for all of Air New Zealand’s rostering optimisers, including proposing, negotiating and implementing significant changes to the handling of pilot requests. Amanda graduated with Bachelor’s degrees in Commerce and Science, followed by a Masters in Operations Research with first-class honours. Amanda’s current role includes running Optima’s airline team, being heavily involved in project management and being responsible for much of the day-to-day running of Optima.

Dr. Andrew Mason - Research Director

Dr Andrew Mason completed a Bachelor of Engineering in New Zealand and a PhD at Cambridge University in the UK. He is currently a Senior Lecturer at the University of Auckland in the Department of Engineering Science. Andrew’s research activities focus on the use of mathematical modeling and optimization methods to solve practical problems. Recent and on-going projects include the development and implementation of rostering software for New Zealand Customs and TabCorp (a client of Mantrack), design of core components of SIREN ambulance simulation software, and consultancy activities for organizations such as Shell and the New Zealand Government’s Department of Treasury.