AUT appoints Derek Handley to an Executive Professor role

AUT appoints Derek Handley to an Executive Professor role

Derek Handley, one of New Zealand’s most well-known entrepreneurs, has taken up an Adjunct Executive Professorship at AUT.

Handley is CEO of The B Team, and Chairman of the recently launched mobile advertising company Snakk and Derek McCormack, AUT’s Vice Chancellor, sees his Executive Professorship as offering great benefits to AUT.

“Derek’s contribution to business and innovation is inspirational and his insights will be invaluable to our students’ thinking about enterprises or working in business. He is able to provide both a New Zealand and a global perspective. His reputation in international business and entrepreneurship brings much to the University” says Vice Chancellor Derek McCormack.

As Executive Professor, Derek Handley will work with Dr Geoff Perry, Dean of AUT’s Business School, and his first task will be to make a public address on Tuesday 4 June 2013 from 1:00-2:00pm in the Forum area of AUT’s Sir Paul Reeves Building. At the event Derek will be talking about his successes and failures while beginning and building multiple international start-ups, highlighting techniques for designing one’s life dreams and making them happen.

Derek Handley worked alongside Sir Richard Branson and Jochen Zeitz to start the B Team, which is a global leadership collective aimed at making business work better for people and the planet in order to meet the challenges of the 21st century. He is also a Sir Peter Blake Trust Leader, KEA World Class New Zealander and was the Ernst & Young ‘Young Entrepreneur of the Year’ in 2009. He co-founded global mobile marketing company The Hyperfactory, selling it to media giant Meredith Corporation in 2010. He has founded and helped build multiple international start-up companies including Snakk Media which listed on the NZ Stock Exchange in 2013.

ENDS

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