Meet The Team

Founder & Cocktail Maker
here at posBoss

Growing up in a family where ‘giving it a go’ was always strongly encouraged, posBoss founder Jonny credits his parents with nurturing his keen entrepreneurial spirit.

That same spirit has seen him establish an industry-wide reputation for having his finger on the pulse; Jonny’s thoughts on the state of hospitality are regularly sought out.

The path to posBoss began when, as a teenager, Jonny ran commercially successful underage dance parties in his hometown of Wellington. The supportive environment at home meant that risk was never a mitigating consideration.

After gaining a Bachelor in Information Studies at Victoria University, Jonny landed his first corporate job.

Years of study had been accompanied by hospitality work in the evenings, laying the foundations of a lifetime of in-depth knowledge… and making catch-up-sleep Sundays very precious!

After four months of full time corporate work, Jonny and his brother opened their first cocktail bar, Hawthorn Lounge, in Wellington’s CBD. The venture took off, and after juggling a full-time job with the busy bar for six months, Jonny hung up his corporate suit and transitioned into full-time hospitality management.

Skill set, knowledge and experience all combined to help Jonny form the idea that underlies the posBoss brand: to create innovative tech solutions which meet the needs of today’s busy hospo professional.

Today, Jonny sees his main role as driving the company towards the next big goal; to always be looking forward as he and the team work collectively towards a shared vision.

The avid cocktail maker admits that mixology is the main thing he misses from his time behind the bar, but weekends at home keep him amply occupied with household and garden tasks, and he relishes nothing more than tackling a good list from start to finish.

A self-confessed ‘sucker for doing things’, Jonny has developed a line of pre-bottled cocktails, has an imminent project launching with a rum company, is on a mission to regenerate New Zealand’s forests, is attempting to learn Mandarin, and has recently left his childless days behind him to become a dad; this last pastime being his new, absolute favourite thing.

Project Executor & Smiling Assasin
here at posBoss

Tricia had been working front-of-house in the fast-paced Wellington restaurant scene for years before posBoss founder Jonny McKenzie offered her an opportunity to work at his dynamic start-up in 2016.

Starting out as a customer service and sales representative, Tricia relished the break from the physically taxing world of hospo; although she admits—at first, she wasn’t quite sure what to do with herself during evenings and weekends!

Tricia particularly enjoyed helping get new posBoss customers set up with the system, and within a few months she moved across to the onboarding team.

In 2019 Tricia moved into her Project Management role, and now works across both product and sales teams. She’s responsible for keeping developers on task, ensuring the team is working on fit-for-purpose product solutions, taking account of feedback, plenty of coordination, managing expectations, and meeting those all-important deadlines.

Tricia’s front-of-house experience stood her in great stead for success in the project management arena. When considering the new role, she was helpfully told by a friend that project management is very similar to running a shift on the restaurant floor, and she’s since found that to be true.

With a degree in Māori Resource Management and Media Studies under her belt, Tricia would love to get more involved with strategy, and to gain fluency in te Reo.

Despite a tendency to introversion, Tricia is deeply interested in her fellow human, and enjoys working with the passionate team at posBoss, which she credits for making for some fascinating conversations.

Finally working out what to do with her downtime has seen Tricia reading, hiking around her hometown of Wellington, enjoying a good dinner out, or picking up her knitting to settle in and watch far too many ‘terrible shows’ online.

Operations Manager & Party Starter
here at posBoss

An immediate grasp of the synergy between hospitality and tech support was the catalyst for Brent to find his career niche; one which ultimately led to his role as Operations Manager at posBoss.

Brent oversees customer activation, support, training, documentation and messaging in this role, as well as managing the technical incident process. He is the final stop for product testing and, as part of the senior team, supports the formation of company strategy.

After completing hospitality training in Brisbane, Brent gained experience managing food and beverage and teams in hotel functions hubs. Part of his job was recording and inputting computer data at the end of a function, and it was a process he found himself really enjoying.

This gave him an inkling there might be a future waiting for him in information technology. An eight-month IT course followed, during which Brent found that—unlike the teaching methods used at high school—a module-based learning process suited him perfectly, and he went on to gain an award-winning average score of over 92% across the course.

The stars aligned when Brent met Jonny McKenzie, posBoss founder, when he was a customer at Jonny’s Wellington bars. The pair hit it off, became good friends, and about six months into the evolution of posBoss, Brent decided to both invest in and apply for a job with the start-up. The rest is history.

As chief wordsmith for the organisation, Brent’s passion for writing has seen him complete a fantasy children’s novel, The Shadow of the Hook, which he has turned into a podcast.

Brent relishes food, dining out, trying new places, and taking a sporadic trip away.

If he ever found himself in possession of the time and patience necessary to learn, Brent suspects he would love the feeling of playing a song on the piano.

For now, he’s quite satisfied with using one of his four guitars instead; the music lover and former band member enjoys attending gigs, as well as playing for friends on occasion.

Head Developer & Latte Art Throwdown Champion here at posBoss

The astute prediction of an observant programming teacher mapped out Matt’s technological pathway from the classroom all the way to his lengthy tenure as key member of the posBoss development team from his early days of high school.

With an exceptional gift for programming and problem solving, Matt sailed through his tech education with ease and a scholarship, eventually earning a Bachelor’s degree in Computer and Mathematical Sciences with Honours.

Soon after, the equally astute Jonny McKenzie, founder of posBoss, snapped up the graduate who became the start-up’s first full time employee.

Matt’s role with the company has evolved significantly over time. In the early days he supported the third party contractors who helped lay the foundations of the posBoss product; nowadays he turns the company vision into reality with the support of his own development team.

Supporting and nurturing less experienced developers has become a feature of the role for which Matt has found a real passion.

His own experience and longevity in the job has helped him gain deep knowledge of the transition required from classroom to real-world understanding, and he derives much satisfaction on the part of both his junior developers and his own continued learning when in support of their progress to intermediate level.

Matt enjoys working amid the intensity of the hospitality environment, where he finds the posBoss team’s attitude to getting things done both surprising and stimulating.

The city-dweller loves heading out to a bike trail to blow off steam, or taking his electronic skateboard for a ride along the beach.

He reads a lot of books, is re-learning Spanish, and would love to learn te Reo Māori.

The IT master also plays video games, and spends a little ‘too much time’ on YouTube and Twitter.

UK Partnership & Campaign Innovator
here at posBoss

Joining the team in early 2023, Blanche is on a mission to bring posBoss to the Brits. A jack of all trades, Blanche offers enthusiasm and experience in scaling, kiwi-led companies at home and abroad.

Blanche is Wellingtonian at heart but doesn't stay still for too long. Degrees in Marketing, Anthropology and Spanish fostered a passion for people and a curiosity about the world. Never one to waste an opportunity, she also juggled hospitality and retail experience, planting seeds of customer-centricity. Importantly, this funded her studies and travels across South and Central America.

After returning home, she found her home among small teams with big dreams. She has firmly stuck to roles in fast-growing companies with a healthy dose of ambiguity ever since.

In 2022, with itchy feet, Blanche journeyed to London in search of a career fast-track. She and Jonny connected and the stars aligned. posBoss was looking for their first boots on the ground. What better way to stay connected to home, than to bring a piece of it to the rest of the world?

Blanche is on a journey to becoming an expert in all things posBoss and UK hospitality. Aside from this, you can find her planning dinner parties, convincing friends to come to gigs or exhibitions, and plotting ways to explore her new backyard.

Customer Success Specialist
here at posBoss

Camilla describes her posBoss role as ‘talking to people, and telling them why posBoss is awesome.’

She loves working with posBoss customers, and being able to put her extensive hospitality knowledge to good use in finding the right solutions for others, particularly customers with little experience of the industry.

Hailing from Milan, Italy, Camilla ended up in New Zealand in 2018 partly due to our reputation for exceptional craft beer. She had previously worked for some time in the field of boutique brewing.

Things fell into place when she picked up a bar management position on arrival to the country, soon after meeting a partner. When NZ’s border closed, Camilla was stuck here, but said she is not at all unhappy about it!

Camilla’s background is in social sciences and languages, and she has a keen interest in diverse cultures.

She loves the challenging aspect of her posBoss role, in which she’s continually seeking to improve and up-skill.

The supportive culture in the team both eases communication and provides a solid foundation to explore how best she can serve posBoss customers.

While Camilla always thought it would be hard to leave the world of on-the-ground hospitality, she’s found her posBoss role is the perfect space to be able to use what she knows while helping others.

posBoss fan-turned-employee, in her free time former pastry chef Camilla loves to cook and bake, make cheese, socialise and talk with friends, hike, hit the beach, read (a lot) and, when circumstances allow, travel.