Hawke's Bay firm sells stake to net big business

Ask Your Team chief operating officer Jo Downey (right) liaises with Sarah Montford and Sandy Radburnd. Photo / Warren Buckland

Havelock North company Ask Your Team has sold a cornerstone stake to a private equity firm to fuel strong growth.

Founded in 2014 it offers organisations an anonymous survey of staff on business performance from which it produced reports showing where to act best for people to perform better.

Clients include listed companies, central and local government, primary health organisations and privately businesses with as few as six employees and up to several thousand.

"We have had our first global company sign up, based in Vancouver, with a $3 billion turnover," CEO Chris O'Reilly said.

"They have run it in 14 countries in four languages including Arabic.

"Our business is really starting to take off. We have grown now to 13 staff in little-ol' Havelock North and they are all high-value jobs.

"Our key developer is a Ukrainian guy that has been here for two years with his family and we just hired a new product manager who has re-located from the UK with his Napier wife and we are employing another two or three people as we speak.

"That is all part of what we are using the private equity funding for: continuing to fund growth and taking advantage of the opportunity with the innovation we have been able to tap into, so it is all pretty exciting and the private equity funding is a real vote of confidence."

The original start-up of 40-somethings has grown to a more youthful staff.
Christchurch-based Genesis Private Equity (GPE) has invested in a 25 per cent stake of Ask Your Team.

Genesis executive director Kieran O'Hagan has joined the Ask Your Team board saying growth was impressive, winning a significant number of high-quality organisations as clients across a wide cross-section of industries and sectors.

"Several of these clients are confirming the Ask Your Team process has been transformational for their business," he said.

"Ask Your Team has identified a strong market opportunity and then built a tool which whilst clever in its simplicity, meets that market need better than any of its domestic and international competitors."

Mr O'Reilly said the funding would continue strong growth and take advantage of "significant partnership opportunities".

The public sector spent $55 million annually on leadership training "but literally no way of measuring who should get what training or if it is having an affect".

Five crown entities had signed up and more were expected, improving benchmarking data.

The system was developed in collaboration with the University of Waikato's business school of management which makes regular reviews.

GPE was formed in 2015 by two former bankers. Based in Ashburton it has shareholders throughout Canterbury.

Former Napier MP Chris Tremain is no longer a director of Ask Your Team but remains a shareholder.