Part-time senior leadership for growing New Zealand businesses.
Complex situations. Clear priorities. Real momentum.
Growing businesses reach a point where the next step is clear, but the capacity to take it isn't. A new market, a better pipeline, a new location, a growth opportunity the team can see but can't get to.
That's where I come in. I work alongside owners and management teams, part-time and embedded, helping shape the decisions and then delivering them.
Sometimes the opportunity isn't in the business yet, but in an idea an owner hasn't tested. I do that too.
What I help with
- General management supportAn extra senior pair of hands for a growing business, when there's more senior work than the leadership team has time for. That might mean setting priorities, leading a team or getting a project delivered.
- Growth and new customersThe whole journey, from how customers find you to the offer, the pricing and what happens when someone shows interest.
- New marketsResearching them properly, then entering them, at home or offshore.
- Practical AIKnowing what to look for: where AI can make a real difference to your business. Then building the tools myself, or overseeing a team to build them when that's faster or the job is more complex.
How I work
Part-time and embedded, close to the people doing the work. I'm as comfortable on the factory floor as in the boardroom, and I work best where people with different perspectives need to come together.
Engagements are scoped to what's needed, so the cost stays proportional to the result.
Track record
- Delivered Franklin and Friends, an over-US$10M production made across three countries, on time and on budget.
- Worked with Lemon Sky (Malaysia) and Infinite Studios (Indonesia) in their early years, bringing them production work and supporting its delivery. Both are now major international studios.
- Built partnerships between international corporations that led to multi-year shared work and investment.
- Founded two early-stage technology ventures and built their products with AI-assisted development.
- Built an AI prospecting tool that finds, rates and queues up sales targets automatically.
About Derek
Derek Reeves leads Oktain. His career has been spent inside the leadership of businesses, not advising them from the outside: ten years running Asia Pacific for an international entertainment company, two technology ventures of his own, and government and enterprise sales across the region.
He started his career as a teacher, and explaining things clearly and supporting people to do their best work have stayed at the centre of how he leads. He has lived and worked in Singapore, Tokyo, Jakarta and Toronto, and is based between Auckland and Northland.
