Chris Mackay - Chief Executive Officer

Chris Mackay is the CEO of The Optima Corporation. Chris has 20 years of experience in the IT industry. He was previously the CEO for Computerland New Zealand, a $150m IT Services Company, he has been a director of a number of IT software and service companies and was New Zealand’s only representative on the Hewlett Packard Asia Pacific advisory board. His previous experience includes responsibility for National Sales and Service teams, running a franchise network and managing multiple vendor relationships such as IBM, Hewlett Packard, Microsoft and Cisco. He has strong strategic and commercial skills which are balanced with his focus on customer and partner relationships.

Amanda Day - Operations Manager

Amanda Day joined Optima in 2006 to manage Optima’s airline business and is now Operations Manager with special responsibility for support of Optima’s solutions. She has a master’s degree in Operations Research and 10 years’ experience in airline optimization with Air New Zealand’s Operations Research group. Her skill set includes extensive experience in Project Management.

Dr. Paul Day - Head of Development

Dr Paul Day is a founding principal of Optima who now heads product development. He completed his Bachelor of Engineering and PhD at the University of Auckland in New Zealand. Paul completed his PhD research on aircrew rostering which has been successfully implemented at Air New Zealand. Paul contributes a vast wealth of knowledge in the practical aspects of solving real business challenges using optimization, and he is responsible for the software production engineering process and the development of the Emergency Services product range.

Jim Waite - Software Architect

Graduating in 1995 with first class honours in his mathematics masters degree, Jim joined the operations research team at Air New Zealand. While there, working with company founders David Ryan and Paul Day on large scale resource optimization problems he discovered his passion and natural talent for computer programming. Shortly after the company was formed in the late ‘90s, Jim joined in a software development role, and over the years his combination of mathematical ability and computer programming know-how has led to the successful solution of many difficult technical problems. Jim enjoys what he does, and makes it his business to keep abreast of the latest technological advances in software development.

Dr. Oliver Weide - Developer

Dr Oliver Weide started to work for Optima in May 2008. He completed his Masters of Mathematics degree from the Technical University of Darmstadt in Germany in 2003. Oliver started a PhD of Engineering Science at the University of Auckland in 2005 and completed his degree in February 2009. His research on robust aircraft and crew scheduling was successfully implemented at Air New Zealand before he finished his degree. Oliver works as a software developer and designs mathematical optimization models. Recently, Oliver has been working on a Theatre Optimization project seeking to optimally allocate surgeons and procedures to operating theatre sessions.

Craig White - Business Development Manager, Europe

Craig White has worked closely with public safety organisations for over 12 years in the UK bringing a strong consultancy, account management and business development focus to his role, Craig has concentrated on delivering solutions that improve efficiency and effectiveness and help provide evidence based arguments in an ever-changing public sector environment.

More recently, in response to the comprehensive spending review, Craig has been working with senior managers in Fire and Rescue Services to develop solutions for saving money without reducing the level of service to the public.

Craig has been involved in projects in the US, Middle East and Europe as well as the UK.

Craig joined Optima in 2011 and is responsible for ensuring Optima's presence continues to grow in the European public safety market and is based in our UK office.

Dr. Robert Berks - Development Team Leader

Dr Robert Berks completed a BSc (Hons) majoring in Computer Science at the University of Auckland, New Zealand and a PhD at the University of Waterloo, Canada. He has worked at IBM Toronto Labs developing DB2 Enterprise Edition database, and at Navman New Zealand developing GPS guided car navigation systems. He also has academic experience at the University of Auckland as a lecturer in Software Engineering.

Tim Lynskey - Sales Director, Europe

Tim Lynskey joined Optima as VP Sales in 2004. He majored in economics and English at University and has held various national account manager and sales manager roles in the transport and technology sectors. Prior to joining Optima he spent three years as Executive Account Manager for SAS New Zealand. His career has also included three years as National Account Manager of Rebus Software (formerly Peterborough Software) and General Sales Manager of Speech Recognition Systems Limited.

Dr Geoff Goodhew - Senior Business Analyst

Dr Geoff Goodhew completed his PhD in Management in 1998 with in-depth studies of change management and managerial cognition. He has worked as a business and financial systems analyst in the UK, Europe and New Zealand working on both implementation and upgrades of enterprise systems. Geoff is an expert in organizational analysis and process design and has redesigned and streamlined several processes in his capacity as a business analyst. Geoff joined Optima in 2006 and is responsible for planning and managing implementation projects. He has worked with Emergency Medical Services in Australia, Canada and The United Kingdom and is based in our UK Office.

Natalie Rouse - Business Analyst Team Leader

Natalie Rouse graduated from the University of Auckland with a Bachelor of Engineering, majoring in Engineering Science while getting work experience completing student projects for Air New Zealand investigating and implementing successful optimization solutions. She then took on a junior analyst role in a large transport and logistics organization, where she spent 5 years growing through customer and technical support, technical reporting, business analysis and training roles to become a product owner. At Optima she now leads the BA team, supervising and coordinating implementation projects and processes globally.

Bill Hollins - Project Director

Bill Hollins joined Optima in December 2007. He brings over 25 years’ management experience both of people and projects in the following roles: Service Delivery Manager, IT Manager, Project Management, Design and Development Manager, Operations Manager and Support Manager. In addition he has had roles as a Senior Consultant for database and storage multinational companies. Bill is a Prince2 Practitioner Certified Project Manager and has been involved in consulting and managing multiple overseas projects including in Hong Kong, Malaysia, UK, USA, Australia and Canada.

Chris Callsen - Chief Operating Officer, North America

Chris Callsen is an Emergency Medical Services (EMS) and Homeland Security executive with almost 30 years of diverse experience. He has served as a senior operations and clinical executive in nationally recognized EMS organizations as well as providing local, state and national leadership through participation on formal advisory panels and boards. Chris was educated at Georgetown University in Washington, DC and recently completed the Senior Executives in State and Local Government program at Harvard University‘s John F Kennedy School of Government.