Ockham Residential’s Group CFO, Vanessa Irvine is a Chartered Accountant of over 20 years’ standing. After joining PwC, Vanessa spent 15 years in senior roles in London and Europe, working in financial services for leading global institutions. 

Ockham had the good fortune to recruit her in 2015 and she’s been Group CFO since 2018, adding valuable depth and breadth to Ockham’s lead team with her experience in finance, strategic planning and global business transformation.

When she’s not in the office, she’s spending time with her family on the beautiful Hauraki or relaxing on her beloved Waiheke.

Fiona started her career with a Land Management cadetship at the then Department of Lands and Survey, where she was involved in  Crown property transactions and management including acquisitions of land for parks and reserves.

After a stint of living and travelling overseas  she moved to DOC, also working in land and property management  before moving to Auckland City Council’s property team. Her experience there was across multiple strategic assets and collaborating with a wide range of  community and commercial stakeholders. Her next role was at Genesis Energy looking after the Corporate Property team and being fortunate to have an insight into the special places and people, and what is needed to keep the lights on before she joined team Ockham.

“I transitioned from government departments to local government to a SOE,” she says with a chuckle. “Coming to Ockham is the first time I've worked in a privately owned company. But it’s the perfect role because I've always been passionate about building and development and creating usable, beautiful buildings and  community places and  spaces.” In her downtime she loves being able to get outside – you’ll find her walking, mountain biking, relaxing at her family bach in Tauranga, cooking for a get together or planning to do one of the great walks.

Ben’s love of construction was sparked while working school holiday jobs on Auckland building sites. After school, he completed a Bachelor of Construction Economics while also working at Kingston Partners in quantity surveying.

In Ben’s final year of study, he was in the audience when Shane Brealey delivered a lecture on vertical integration of construction companies. “That was what I was doing my thesis on,” says Ben, “So I grabbed the chance to chat to him and he offered me the opportunity to work for his company, NZ Strong.” 

Ben spent the next six years learning the ropes of contractor quantity surveying from Shane. “I was really lucky to spend heaps of time with him. He was more of a mentor than a boss. My career accelerated much faster than most people just because of the exposure I got to his level of thinking.” 

After two years working on high-end apartment buildings in London, Ben returned to New Zealand and applied to work at Ockham because architecture, project management and construction are all in-house. “The construction industry can be very adversarial and very contractual,” says Ben. “At Ockham, there is way less aggro. Being vertically integrated lends itself more to collaboration, so it’s a more enjoyable process to deliver a building.” 

When he’s not at Ockham, Ben’s spending as much time as he can with his son Louie, enjoying a round of golf, or catching up with friends. 

Real Estate is in Kate’s blood. Her mum, Anne Duncan – founder of Anne Duncan Real Estate – showed Kate the ropes when she was back home in Auckland on a break from studying law and finance at the University of Otago. It was a case of needs must.

“Mum had surgery on her shoulder and needed someone to drive her around and write up the contracts while she recuperated," she says. “That’s how I got my start!”

Kate loved the excitement of helping people find their perfect home, so she took a break from the books and got stuck into sales. She honed her skills with her mum for several years before starting at Custom Residential as their Growth and Performance Manager. Kate crossed the ditch to work at Sydney’s Ray White Double Bay for five years but was lured back to New Zealand to work at Harcourts, training up fellow real estate agents across the whole of the South Island. She did return to study eventually - finishing her MBA in 2015.

Ockham nabbed Kate for the Head of Sales role when she moved back to central Auckland from Kawakawa Bay, and she is currently in charge of what she describes as “the dream sales team”.  When our shining sales star is not at Ockham, Kate can be found at the gym, powering through the pool, or doting on her two nephews.

The first step on Tania’s path to Ockham was tech drawing at Avondale College. She loved the precision and creativity of the subject – she was drawing up imaginary houses at 13 – and subsequently studied architecture at the University of Auckland.

She landed her first job out of Uni in Vancouver, measuring and drawing up community colleges. Tania returned to New Zealand for her graduation and started work at Stephenson and Turner in the CAD department. One of the directors, Geoff Land, swiftly recognised Tania’s talent and drafted her onto his projects. “I learnt a huge amount from him,” Tania admits. After a couple of years, she moved back to Canada, living in Toronto, and working for a graphic designer before the bright lights of London lured her to the UK. There, she focused mainly on renovations of venerable London buildings for City North Group. She completed her registration back home at MGA Innovation, working on industrial and commercial developments.

In 2009, Tania started at Ockham and her distinctive, beautiful designs have been an integral part of our success. Tania loves living in Auckland. “I love the beaches and I love Rangitoto and it's steadily becoming a multicultural city, which is fantastic.” In her spare time, Tania tears up the tennis court at Dunholme or relaxes on Kawau Island. She enjoys taking underwater photographs and is a keen diver and fisher.

If you have any media queries, Peter Malcouronne is your go-to chap. His team also look after Ockham’s words, images and ‘story’ – honest propaganda if you will – and oversee the relationship we have with our sponsorees and partners.

Since his feature-writing career began with a story in The Listener on a nudist camp open day, Peter has won numerous national and international journalism awards. In the two decades since, he has paddled through Parnell sewers, attended dog shows, profiled boxers, wood choppers and seditionists – and dabbled as ‘Dr Love Professor’, possibly the world’s most inept dating columnist. He has also written two books – a sentimental and non-best-selling ode to rugby, and a rather more successful opus on Aotea Great Barrier Island. The father of two enjoys AC/DC, ABBA, West Auckland culture, cats and YouTube clips of Shane Bond’s yorkers. 

Joss credits her parents for her incredible work ethic. They were in the hotel industry, so her first job was cleaning rooms in a luxury hotel in Bath, aged 13. Her family loved to travel and Joss discovered a flair for languages, which led to a BA (Hons) in Modern Languages.

After graduating, Joss was snapped by a PR agency who appreciated her ability to pitch stories to French and Spanish journos. She rose through the ranks of public relations but left a high-powered job at AOL’s London branch to try her hand at real estate. “I think as a young person my impression of PR was that it was going to be more like sales. I realised that was my strong point and real estate was right up my alley,” says Joss. She now boasts nearly 20 years’ sales experience in the real estate industry, predominantly in residential sales.

The London native followed her Kiwi husband to Aotearoa in 2008 and started with Ockham when their seven-year-old daughter Evie was a baby. Thanks to her superlative sales skills and sparkling personality, she’s now our Sales Team Leader. When she’s not at work, she takes advantage of the outdoorsy lifestyle Auckland offers. “I love that we're five minutes away from the beach. On the weekends we take the kids surfing and boogie boarding, or head out west for a spot of mountain biking, tramping or horse riding. If I was still living in London, these definitely wouldn’t be options!”

Adrienne perfected her graphic design skills volunteering on the University of Auckland’s student mag, Craccum, while completing a BA. Adrienne began working in advertising after uni, starting out Colenso BDDO before winning a spot at the Australian Advertising School.

She worked in Sydney before landing a role as an art director at TBWA in Johannesburg. “That was one of my favourite jobs ever,” says Adrienne. “I was thrown into TV commercials straight away and I learnt so much!”

Art was always Adrienne’s first love though, and she jumped at the opportunity to study visual arts at the University of Arts London. While working as a professional artist and freelance graphic designer, her art was selected for international art prize exhibitions in the UK and USA.

It was Adrienne who designed Ockham’s distinctive Möbius strip logo in 2010. “Both Mark and Ben have mathematical backgrounds, so creating a logo out of something abstract like a mathematical symbol was intriguing to investigate,” she says. She collaborated with her sister Tania on various signage and design projects for Ockham until her return to Aotearoa from the US, when she became our Head of Graphic Design. When she’s not creating beautiful brochures, advertisements and logos for Ockham, she’s creating beautiful works of art. You’ll find several of her paintings gilding the walls of the Ockham building, Kōkihi and The Isaac.