Simon Pound Email & Phone Number

Auckland, Nz

Auckland, New Zealand

Auckland, New Zealand

Managing partner responsible for Brand Fund 1 and Venture Studio

Auckland, New Zealand

The best way to predict the future is to create it. Previously Unavailable is an innovation studio, working with ambitious leaders who are inventing or reinventing. We create products, brands and businesses that turn vision into reality. What’s the future you want to create?Leading up our Venture Studio efforts where we work with start-ups and scale-ups using brand to drive business success. Notable projects include Starshipit, aglow, chnnl, GD1, Timely, Seachange and Brancott Estate.

Auckland, New Zealand

Leading up Brand Fund for Previously, investing in companies where building brand will be a defining part of their success. Brand Fund 1 is closed to new investors, with Brand Fund 2 coming soon. We are always interested in meeting, partnering and investing in great founders. Get in touch, we'd love to hear from you!

For the last four years I've had the privilege of running positioning, value prop and brand idea workshops with many great NZ exporters, helping them tighten their approach to their customer, route to market, value prop and messaging. I've delivered research strategy and positioning for great companies in tech, FMCG, hardware and SaaS - from some of our largest exporters and best-known names to emerging businesses.

Host of the Business is Boring podcast. Presented by Callaghan Innovation and The Spinoff as a way to get non-traditional business stories out and talk to people building the future of NZ innovation, tech and business. Most weeks it hits top NZ made business podcast on iTunes. We’ve been picked up by Air New Zealand for their inflight entertainment – it is so exciting to have our stories of high-flying Kiwi literally ‘flying high’.

Managing Director for fashion brand that grew to three own-brand stores, 20+ stockists, online and international sales, and is now an online first model, with a low production philosophy.New product development, innovating the business model and offering. Sales/marketing/retail/brand and business development for the made in New Zealand fashion label Ingrid Starnes. Working from the beginning, learning a lot about small business, building a media profile, manufacturing, and very practical experience in marketing, budgeting, fragrance product development and capital raising. Selected Awards:Metro Best of Auckland list, retail, two years running. Named one of the top labels to watch by the New Zealand Herald, perfume named one of the top products to come out of New Zealand by Monocle magazine.

Auckland, New Zealand

Global Vend brand & communications director.Global brand, communications, and creative lead for Vend over 4.5 years of hyper-growth, partnerships with the world's other leading retail brands, and sustained business results. A look back can be found here: https://medium.com/@simonpound/leaving-vend-9f678bdd2c4eResponsible for reputation management, brand strategy and brand creative & execution. Creative Director leading up the internal studio, PR & communications teams. Our studio designs and ships all marketing website pages, our videos, online advertisements and field marketing collateral.Our communications team are responsible for managing our investment in PR agencies in the US, UK and Australia, are responsible for NZ PR, and for our social media presence. Selected Awards: 2 X Gold American Business Stevie Award for video. 2014 and 2017 2017 Silver International Business Stevie Award Small-Budget Marketing Campaign of the Year (<$3 million / €5 million) category. Silver International Business Stevie Award Marketing Team of the Year. Silver APAC Business Stevie Awards Video of the year.

Copy, creative, brand, video and telling Vend and retailer stories, drawing on being a retailer using Vend at Ingrid Starnes.

Senior Creative Writer working in for brands and agencies such as Saatchi & Saatchi, Contagion and Running With Scissors working on clients such as Telecom (Spark), Lexus, Tourism New Zealand, TVNZ, ASB, Tui, Monteith’s, Smirnoff. Senior Digital Writer working on websites such as Westpac, Avis and Vista Group.

Satin & Lace was a production company specialising in branded content and innovative production for any screen. Produced the Smokefree Rockquest show for MediaWorks, NZ on Air and the Health Sponsorship Council for three years. Jointly responsible for the management, reporting on and pitching for funding/work. Clients and collaborators included: Colenso, Running with Scissors, Mountain Dew, TVNZ, RadioLive, MoreFM, Auckland Museum, Artist Simon Denny.

Reporter, researcher, writer, presenter and producer across a range of politics, media and advertising shows. Highlights included stories around Working for Families that led the news and were recorded in Hansard, meeting and reporting on media figures like PJ O’Rourke, hosting panel discussions on LGBT treatment in the media and covering three elections.