Media Release dated 12 August 2014

The Wharf42 Live! Series: Claudia Batten Presents

Wharf42 launches its Wharf42 Live! Series of events with a presentation by KEA’s 2014 World Class New Zealand Awards Supreme Award recipient.

TAURANGA, NEW ZEALAND: 12 August 2014: Wharf42, the New Zealand-based business connector focused on identifying high-potential NZ technology start-ups, getting them to Silicon Valley and plugging them into that region’s vast technology ecosystem, today announced  the launch of the Wharf42 Live! Series with a highly anticipated presentation by Claudia Batten at Ignition, Tauranga, this coming Thursday, 14 August.

Claudia is perhaps best known as being part of the founding team of Massive Inc. which sold to Microsoft Corp. in 2006. Claudia then co-founded advertising agency Victors & Spoils – the world’s first agency built on crowdsourcing. V&S was acquired by French holding company Havas in April 2012. Today, Claudia splits her time between the technology hub that is Boulder, Colorado and New Zealand.

Claudia represents all that is great about Kiwi entrepreneurs building scale offshore. The former Samuel Marsden Collegiate student and Victoria University honours graduate, left a promising career with law firm Russell McVeagh to chase her dream.

The early days with Massive were tough. Long hours, no pay and no shortage of red eye flights. Claudia and her team persisted. The rewards were to come. Firstly through a well-executed business plan that saw Massive’s software downloading real-time advertising into background features of the action when the user was gaming online. Then the call from Microsoft.

Today, Claudia is giving back big time. She is a Board member of The Icehouse in Auckland, providing mentoring, advice and support to early stage New Zealand digital companies looking to build a global footprint. This on-going contribution to the New Zealand startup community was recognised when Claudia reigned supreme at KEA’s 2014 World Class New Zealand Awards earlier this year, becoming the youngest ever Supreme Award recipient.

We cannot think of a more appropriate entrepreneur to launch the Wharf42 Live! Series.

Media Contact:

Peter Wren-Hilton
Founder, Wharf42

e: peter@wharf42.co.nz
t: +64 21791120