Our team
We borrow from action research and human-centred design philosophies. We’re made from equal parts logic and creativity. We research, listen to our users, and experiment. And we ask “Why?” until it can’t be asked any more.
Jamie MacDonald Co-CEO
Jamie was born in Gore and went to Gore Playcentre. Since then he has worked for a variety of businesses helping people get the most out of their online interactions. Jamie originally created Storypark for his mum, who is an early childhood educator in Gore.
Peter Dixon Co-CEO
Peter was born in Auckland and went to Brooklyn Kindergarten. Since then he has helped develop a number of ventures in both New Zealand and North America, and worked to support other organisations who believe in making a difference in the world.
Dion Mortensen Chairman
Dion is a full-time professional Director. He currently serves the Boards of eight organisations, a mixture of SMEs, start-ups and a not-for-profit.
Mathew Hartley CTO
Matt was born in Auckland and went to Mangere Bridge Kindergarten (where his mum, Carol, is the head teacher). Mathew has been interested in technology since his early years, and has been a web developer since graduating with an engineering degree.
Andrew Fyfe User Experience Designer
Andrew was born in Karangahake Gorge and went to Nassau Kindy in the Bahamas. Andrew has been helping design Storypark since it first began, and makes sure it’s easy for teachers and families to use.
Athena Skliros Canadian Professional Development Trainer
Athena was born and raised in Toronto, Canada. She has worked in a range of child care and family support programs and now provides training and education to early childhood educators and other professionals. Athena is active in her promotion of best practices in early childhood and was named an Exchange Leader by Child Care Exchange magazine in July 2018
Lynnette Parkin Strategic Partnership Manager
Lynnette was born in Lower Hutt and went to Brown Owl Kindergarten. She is a trained primary school teacher and was a user of Storypark in her daughter’s ECE centre before joining the team. Lynnette’s passion and energy come from her belief that every child should be surrounded by love, warmth and understanding. Lynnette thrives on making connections between children and their families and communities.
Lisa Lalonde North American Community Manager
Lisa’s early years were supported at home by her family. She now teaches at Algonquin College and is a Registered ECE in Ontario Canada, with a graduate degree in Educational Leadership and Management.
Alitia St Pierre Product Manager
Alitia was born in Wellington and went to Churton Park Kindergarten in Johnsonville. Ever since she was small, she’s wanted to make the world a better place. Now slightly taller, she likes using her knowledge of design and programming to build life-changing software with teams.
Sharon Carlson Professional Learning and Development Manager
Sharon grew up in Taranaki, and went on to become an ECE ICT facilitator for CORE Education in New Zealand. Sharon joined Storypark to make sure teachers get the most out of their professional development.
Kim McMahon North American Customer Service
Kim is a Registered ECE, Montessori trained and a Certified Gentle Sleep Coach. She lives in Ontario with her family, where she owns and operates her Montessori school. Kim uses Storypark at her own school to ensure she supports each child in reaching their unique potential.
Aaron Thornton Software Developer
Aaron was born in Lower Hutt and went to Jack and Jill Kindergarten. He graduated from VUW with a Computer Science degree. Inspired to work on projects with good social outcomes he decided to join Storypark.
Ellery Prisk Full-stack developer
Ellery was born in Australia and came to New Zealand at the age of one where he attended Bulls kindergarten. He graduated from VUW with a degree in Information Systems and Computer Science. He enjoys using technology to make hard tasks easier.
Alana McGillivray Head of Marketing
Alana grew up in Napier and Lower Hutt, NZ and went to Tamatea Kindergarten. Her background is in digital marketing and she’s excited about helping Storypark grow and make a difference for more children and families around the world.
Esmé Putt iOS developer
Esmé grew up in West Auckland and went to Woodlands Park Kindergarten. She is currently finishing studying Bachelor of Science and Bachelor of Biomedical Science degrees as well as studying Te Reo Māori. She has a huge passion for learning and is most happy when she is around people.
Alex Quinlivan Head of Mobile Development
Alex was born in Wellington and went to Khandallah Kindergarten. Alex has been developing mobile apps since he left school.
Megan Bayliss Office Experience Manager
Megan was born in Upper Hutt and spent her early childhood years there, attending Birchville Kindergarten. Megan is happiest when she’s busy and helping others.
Ben Childs Media Production Manager
Ben was born in London, but he went to Busy C’s preschool in Lyttelton. Ben’s strongest skill is telling stories through video.
Timothy MacDonald Web developer
Timothy grew up in Southland, went to Gore Playcentre and did his 7th form year at Mt Aspiring college to pursue his passion in snowboarding. Since then he’s built a career in website development and now joined his brother in the Storypark team. Timothy does a lot of kite surfing in his spare time and he loves cutting code.
Kim Paice Accounts
Kim was born in Wellington, but later moved to Rotorua. When she’s not crunching numbers, she’s training her dogs to compete in three different dog sports.
Sonya McIntyre Community Manager
Sonya went to Rata Street Kindergarten and Petone Kindergarten, before gaining her Bachelor of Education at Victoria University. As well as working with Storypark, Sonya works as an ECE teacher.
Isaiah Alamani Relationship Manager
Isaiah was born in Wellington and went to Sunshine Kindergarten. With experience in customer service, sales, and support, Isaiah is always keen to help customers get the most out of Storypark.
Beth Clements Australian Professional Development Trainer
Beth has worked in early childhood in a variety of roles over the last 17 years, including Educator, Centre Director, Area Manager, Educational development manager, Trainer and Coach. She’s been an expert user of Storypark for three years and brings this unique perspective to her pedagogical training skills.
Amanda Higgins New Zealand Professional Development Trainer
Amanda has managed and led teaching teams in both long-day and sessional early childhood education services, lectured at University, and has been a facilitator working with teams of teachers exploring how digital technologies support children’s learning. In 2015 she completed her Master’s thesis, which investigated how e-portfolios affected communication between teachers and families in an early childhood education centre.
Matt Tunnicliffe Relationship Manager
Matt was born in Wellington and went to Newtown Kindergarten. He has spent his career working across Australasia building and maintaining meaningful customer relationships. Since the birth of his daughter, Sophie, in March 2018, Matt has found new purpose and is committed to supporting every child’s learning journey through creating meaningful connections with the community around them.
Louisa Thomas Technical Support Representative
Louisa was born in Christchurch and went to Rutland Street Kindergarten. She loves to travel and has been building her customer service, technical and education skills throughout New Zealand, Australia and Taiwan. Louisa is really looking forward to helping Storypark customers near and far.
Devyish Gandhi iOS Developer
Devyish was born in Lower Hutt and went to Hataitai kindergarten. His skills are in iOS/Mobile Development, easily adaptable to other languages and their syntax. He used to play Badminton social seriously, now he’s more focused on lifting heavy weights.
Kirsty Traill Board Member
Kirsty is the Vice President of Customer at Hootsuite. She’s passionate about making a difference for children and families and brings a new international perspective to the Storypark family.
Chad Sandeman Full-stack developer
Chad grew up in Sydney, Australia where he attended Shirley Road Pre-school. After moving to New Zealand, he studied computer science at Victoria University, Wellington. When he isn’t writing code, Chad can be found playing video games and looking after his reef tank.
Jamie Lawrie Data Analyst
Jamie grew up in Edinburgh, Scotland and attended Mary Erskine Nursery. He has spent 20 years
working in various data analytics roles and is excited to see how data can help Storypark develop even better products
and deepen the understanding of its users
Rebecca Dugdale Full-stack developer
Rebecca was born in Lower Hutt and went to Gonville kindergarten. She has a bachelors degree in education for the early years (birth to eight) and a post-graduate diploma in special education. She loved being an early childhood teacher for the past ten years but after finding a passion for creating awesome pieces of magic with code she retrained as a developer. Rebecca can’t wait to use her experiences to help improve the lives of teachers and families with Storypark.
Ela Alptekin Digital Optimisation Lead
Digital strategist, an Istanbulite, loving the life in Wellington NZ.
I’m very passionate about “all things digital” that I’ve been working for since 2005.
I enjoy nature and being active and social as well as having my me time to slow down to balance life. I hit the gym, do martial arts and read a lot. I’m among those who keep learning.
David Clearwater Head of Operations and Services
David was born in Palmerston North, to a pair of wonderful educators, and went to Mill Street Kindergarten in Marton. David is passionate about leading teams that use technology to make the world a better place.
Bernadette Keating Customer Support
Bernadette was born in Salisbury, England, moving to New Zealand at the age of one where she attended Moriah Kindergarten. From moving to South Korea, to teaching 5 year olds and adults, she enjoys the challenges associated with new cultures, experiences and relationships and seeks them out to learn from and apply to work.
Suhel Mangera Product Manager
Suhel was born in Surat, India and went to Bhulka Bhavan Kindergarten. He moved to NZ when he was 11 and learned English here. He has over 10 years of experience in data science and product management. Suhel enjoys working in high-performing teams. He loves creating value by solving meaningful customer problems.
Sarah Pennell User Experience Researcher
Sarah was born in Lower Hutt and went to Maungaraki Playcentre where her sensational Mum was a Supervisor. Sarah is passionate about creating truly delightful web experiences; helping people feel valued, heard, comfortable and safe.
Eileen Schwab Product Designer
Eileen was born in Berlin and grew up around Northland, attending Bream Bay Kindergarten in Ruakaka. She loves creating tools and experiences that help make people’s jobs easier, more effective and enjoyable.
Autumn Cooper Customer Support Canada
Autumn was born in Burlington, Ontario, but has since landed in Toronto.
She had the unique experience of having many different educators growing up which inspired her to work as an Early Childhood Educator. Throughout her career she has been committed to inclusive, people and family-focused support. Autumn cares deeply about community and at the heart of all her skill sets is a deeply human need to connect, collaborate and share.
Mary Elizabeth Picher Impact Advisor
Mary Elizabeth, ‘M.E.’ for short, was born in Stamford, Connecticut and attended First Congregational Nursery School. Before doing her PhD thesis on the use of Storypark in Ontario’s Kindergarten Program, M.E. worked as a child and family clinician in infant and children’s mental health settings, supporting the healthy development of young children and their families.
David Leach Site Reliability Engineer
Born in Massey Auckland. Went to Cuthbert Kindergarten (now Onehunga). David loves to cook, eat and write code to automate things.
Michelle Messner Marketing & Partnerships Executive
Michelle was born in Toronto, graduated Todmorden Mills preschool to attend kindergarten at Armour Heights Public School. Michelle’s background is in Psychology, she remains constantly curious and continuously seeks to make a positive impact on others. Out of the office, Michelle loves adventuring outdoors especially when travel is involved.
Courtney Caligiore Australian Professional Development Trainer
I was born in the Dandenongs in Victoria, Australia. I graduated with an Honours Degree in Early Childhood Education at the University of Melbourne, receiving the Deans Honour Award and the Ada Mary A’Beckett Award for Excellence. For the past 10 years, I have been passionately focusing on redefining curriculum practices in early childhood settings, particularly the Royal Children’s Hospital Early Learning.
Robbie Neilson Developer
Robbie was raised on a sheep station out of Whanganui. His mother was a primary school educator who would trial many great learning games on her children. He has been many things including a cartoonist, massage therapist, meditation teacher and spent 2 years as a Teaching Assistant in Wellington assisting pupils with learning needs.
Jesse Williams Mobile Developer
I was born in Porirua and attended Mungavin Kindergarten. I recently finished my engineering degree at Victoria University, where I developed a passion for mobile development. I enjoy creating products that have a positive impact on communities.
Libby Schumacher-Knight Full-stack developer
I was born in Wellington and went to Ngaio Kindergarten. I eventually followed my mother and sister into the education sector by becoming a secondary school teacher. In 2015 I changed careers by completing Enspiral Dev Academy and have been working in the tech industry ever since. I love surfing and can often be found down at Lyall Bay waiting for the perfect wave.
Kaustubh Bahuguna Junior Data Analyst
Hailing from the foothills of the Himalayas in India, Kaustubh moved to Wellington for higher education and totally fell in love with the place. But his first two loves will always be data and basketball.
Nichole Bacon Professional Learning & Development
Nichole was born in the Eastern Suburbs of Perth. She attended Whittome Street Preschool. Nichole brings a wealth of Early Childhood knowledge from her formal Qualifications as an Early Childhood Teacher. Her working experience has covered many facets of the sector having worked in After Hours School Care, Vacation Care as well as Long Day Care in the capacity of Coordinator, Second in Charge and Educational Leader within services both big and small. Her extensive practice experience of the National Quality Framework and passion for sustainable practice led her into the consultancy and support field. Nichole strives to provide practical solutions using real life examples to support educators understanding.
Join the Storypark team
Think you can help us achieve our purpose? Want to work in an inclusive, high performing environment? Got a great childhood picture you want to share with the world?