Pro Partner - ICT Project Management

Congratulations to Julianne, the winner of our New Zealand CIO Innovation Summit & Awards Summit Leaderboard Prize Draw!

As good project teams know, success comes from bringing all the right pieces together, staying on track, and keeping your eyes on the finish line. We hope you enjoy building your Ferrari, one milestone at a time!

Thanks to everyone who participated and helped make the CIO Summit such a great event.

The last 2 days at the New Zealand CIO Innovation Summit & Awards have been fantastic. Thank you to everyone who stopped by to talk with our team, discuss your ambitious IT project and enter the rally ride draw.

We are hosting our winners at Jack's Ridge in Whitford today. It is a beautiful day to get out, do some skids and throw some stones! What an amazing way to wrap up the 2026 New Zealand CIO Innovation Summit & Awards.

We have another rally prize draw winner... Congratulations, Dan Waite!

Dan is the Service Delivery Manager at Gallagher Insurance.
Been with the company (former Crombie Lockwood) since 2017, moving from Level 1 Analyst to SDM in that time. Managing the customer service desks for our 1000 staff across 30 offices in NZ.

Get ready to belt up and experience delivery at pace!

It is shaping up to be a great rally ride day, thank you for all those who entered the draw. We still have a couple more winners to draw later today.

Day 1 of the New Zealand CIO Innovation Summit & Awards is well underway!

Come see the Pro Partner booth (you won't miss it!), chat to the team about your ambitious IT project and enter our rally ride prize draw.

Chris Gracie, our managing director is speaking tomorrow (5th August) at 1.40pm on the NZME Tech Talk Stage as part of the CIO Innovation Expo. Get along to his Tech Talk tomorrow and hear insights on delivering projects at pace without losing control.

Book your expo pass here https://ciosummit.co.nz/expo/

We are thrilled to announce our first rally prize draw winner... Congratulations, Cristina Alvarado!

Cristina, is an international executive with more than 20 years of experience leading strategy, commercial growth, market intelligence and business transformation across financial services, FMCG, agribusiness, technology and capital markets.

Get ready to belt up and experience delivery at pace!

Our prize draw is still running, and we will be drawing names over the course of the CIO Innovation Summit. Come and find our booth, chat about your ambitious IT project and enter the draw or enter now through our website https://www.propartner.co.nz/cio-summit

See you at the CIO Innovation Summit tomorrow!

The New Zealand CIO Innovation Summit is next week!

On Day 2 (5 August) at 1.40pm, Christopher Gracie, Managing Director will be presenting on the Tech Talk Stage, sharing practical insights on Delivering projects at pace without losing control.

If you’re attending, make sure to add this session to your agenda
www.ciosummit.co.nz

Learn more about what we do at Pro Partner:
www.propartner.co.nz

The CIO Innovation Summit is approaching fast and we have been working hard to make it a memorable event.

We are drawing our first winners for the Rally Ride Prize draw tomorrow (30th July) at 4pm. There is still time to put in an early entry, so head over to our website to enter https://www.propartner.co.nz/cio-summit

We will be drawing more winners over the course of the CIO Innovation Summit. So if you are attending the Summit, come and find the Pro Partner booth, have a chat about your ambitious IT project and enter the draw.

See you there!

Two months out from our biggest trade show of the year, this rally car’s engine exploded.

Full catastrophic failure. Not ideal when you’ve promised customer ride‑along experiences as part of your delivery journey.

So we did what we also do in ICT projects: we surrounded the problem with people and know-how and got to work.

The engine was removed and disassembled. Specalist parts were sourced and then rebuilt. Every spare pair of hands was on deck to get back on track.

Somewhat ironically, we are in the middle of doing this for a customer’s major ERP system project — we reset, replan, clear blockers, rebuild components, and refuse to let a setback dictate the outcome.

Last Friday the car was finally back together, so we went straight into test mode. Safe to say I was quite anxious! Every clunk sounded like the next failure. My heart was feeling very heavy with the pressure.

Our test day was part of a real competition and I started slow, +20 seconds off the leader. For Stage 2 we made tweaks to the car setup, and I consciously decided to tune into my codriver instead of the noises — +7s off the leader. In stage 3 we’d settled in, added softer tyres and fully trusted the rebuild — +2s off the leader, with one more stage to go…

A full confidence drive and we finished +0.01s behind the leader!

Not quite a win, but a seriously satisfying second place. No scratches and no failures. Two big months of relentless effort payed off!

ICT Projects can be like this. You will have serbacks. You replan, grind and rebuild, you test, you adjust, and eventually you get back on pace (or better).

Come see the car at the New Zealand CIO Innovation Summit & Awards — and throw your name in the draw to jump in the codriver’s seat with me in Auckland on 6 August. It’s one thing to read this story… it’s another to experience this commitment to delivering successful projects at full noise!