Team

Our team - a mixture of co-founders, advisors, partners, advocates, scientists and investors - is a very diverse and unique group who all have a strong and aligned desire to bring cannabis products to the mainstream in New Zealand.

Board

Marvin Yee
Chairman of the Board

Marvin Yee is the principal of Crown Financial Services (CFS) which undertakes Funds Management and Private Equity. Outside New Zealand, CFS has operations in the United States, Singapore and Australia. Marvin’s area of expertise is in transactional banking and private equity.

His investment experience includes technology, fintech, medtech and the crafting of financial instruments. He is also a partner of Crown Private, a global investment syndicate with investments in over 95 countries and investor members from over 18 countries. Marvin sits on a number of company boards both in New Zealand, Australia, the United States, Malaysia and Singapore. A graduate from Auckland and Massey University, he has an MBA specialising in accounting and finance and a BA in politics. He is a Past Chairman of the New Zealand Young Professionals and a Past President of the Rotary Club of Birkenhead.

 



Simon McArley
Independent Director

Simon graduated from Victoria University, Wellington in 1984 with an LLB (Hons). Simon is a lawyer by training who specialises in corporate governance and risk.

After almost 20 years in private practice with Kensington Swan, specialising in banking and securities law, Simon took up regulatory positions with NZX as acting Head of Regulation and the (then) Securities Commission as acting Director Primary Markets. Simon went on to join the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) as General Manager Capital Markets and Corporate Fraud in 2011 where he had responsibility for the successful investigation and prosecution of finance sector fraud uncovered by the GFC. After 12 months as acting Director of the CFO, Simon left the SFO in 2013 and has since been consulting with government and private sector entities on governance and risk management issues. Simon has also held governance positions with commercial and not for profit entities. Simon is a member of the New Zealand Law Society. Simon is also a keen sailor and has extensive coastal and blue water experience.

Dan Casey
Managing Director

Dan has a background in project management and civil engineering within the civil construction sector and has over 15 years industry experience, both in New Zealand and abroad. Dan is experienced in all facets of the project lifecycle of large-scale developments and capital works and has previously directly managed multiple and concurrent project portfolios up to the value of $30 million. His passion and ability to lead large and diverse teams has seen him become a successful leader within both privately and publicly owned companies. He intends to leverage his networks and their expertise in the procurement, scheduling and delivery of all facility builds for Greenfern as well as driving the overall delivery of the long-term business strategies. As Managing Director, Dan is ultimately responsible for the overall management of the business to ensure that it delivers on shareholder and client expectations.



Kirsten Taylor
Independent Director

Kirsten Taylor is an experienced company owner, CEO, specialist consultant, author, and Board Member of not-for-profit organisations. She is a qualified Medical Herbalist, Naturopath, Nutritionist, and specialist in Natural Fertility and Homeobotanical medicine. Seven years of clinical practice experience lead Kirsten to develop an award-winning range of science-based sleep and stress formulations, with the company she created, SleepDrops International, becoming the top selling sleep category brand in NZ pharmacies and health stores and winner of multiple awards including Best Emerging Business at the Westpac Business Awards in 2014. In 2015, Kirsten was appointed to the board of the Auckland Business Chamber of Commerce and she became a trustee for the Auckland Children’s Santa Parade Trust in 2017. Kirsten’s extensive experience of governance, business, marketing and product innovation enables her to bring a wealth of expertise to this role.

 

Elizabeth Plant
Independent Director 

Elizabeth is an experience clinician and senior manager. She is formerly Medical Officer of EQALIS Pharmaceuticals Ltd (now Cannasouth), a position she held for 4 and a half years. In this role she was responsible for the delivery of education packages and clinical information to health professionals and consumers, as well as coordinating licences to operate through Medsafe.

She set up and worked closely with a group of senior clinicians on a Clinical Advisory Board for the company and has produced a series of prescribing publications and education presentations.

Elizabeth held various roles at Taranaki District Health Board over 20 years: Chief Pharmacist, Director of Medication Management and Pharmacy Portfolio Manager. She was the President of the NZ Pharmaceutical Society for 5 years and a Ministerial appointment to the National IT Board for 8 years.

  

 

 Richard Chew
Chief Financial Officer

Richard is a Chartered Accountant qualified from PwC. He is a member of the Chartered Accountants of Australia and New Zealand (CAANZ) and holds a Bachelor of Commerce from
Auckland University. He has also been recognised in the NZ CFO awards. Richard has more than 20 years’ experience in mergers and acquisition, venture capital and international expansion growth strategies gained during his time based in London, Auckland and Singapore. He has held positions as CFO, senior commercial finance roles, board advisor, investor, and director of several private and listed companies. These include Les Mills International, Fox Sports, Mahi Tahi Media, FCB NZ, 90 Seconds, R&V, Allpress Espresso, Cooks Coffee Company (NZX:CCC) and others. Richard joined Greenfern as their CFO in December 2023 and is currently based in Auckland.

Scott Campbell
Hydropower Station Operator

Scott is qualified Machinist Toolmaker with 22 years’ experience in Taranaki industrial maintenance, also involved with industrial electrical works as a Maintenance Shift Engineer. He has 10 years of involvement with the Hydropower Station with repairs and redesigns and lives locally in Normanby. He will bring valuable experience in this space.



Jeremy Mills-Houlihan
Head of Cultivation

 A born and bred Taranaki local, Jeremy oversees all of Greenfern’s medicinal cannabis cultivation operations at their Normanby facility. Having spent time working in Canada under their cannabis framework Jeremy brings a vast amount of legal industry  knowledge to his role. With a strong emphasis on cleanroom propagation methods, techniques and protocols Jeremy manages the perfect balance of cultivation technology with practical industry know how with the team.



Matthew
Operations Manager

 

Advisors



TJ Irvin



Hemp farmer, entrepreneur and business owner of The Slammer Tool. TJ has a wealth of knowledge and contacts within the medicinal cannabis industry in both the United States and here in New Zealand. TJ has been a holder of numerous industrial hemp growing licences here in NZ. He is an advocate for the industry and a keen educator and mentor within the Hemp Industry here in New Zealand.



James Roper
Sustainability Advisor

James is a sustainability & climate change professional with over 5 year’s experience providing strategic sustainability services to organisations operating in the agriculture, energy and transportation sectors.

James is responsible for supporting Greenfern with the implementation of its sustainability strategy, and is passionate about the many opportunities that a sustainable and regenerative cannabis industry offers.



Julian Azzopardi
Healthcare Advisor



Julian Azzopardi is a highly experienced executive who has founded and launched many healthcare organisations. Julian has implemented significant medical and healthcare projects in Australia, New Zealand and in the Middle East. Julian has previously founded two Australian biotechnology companies that serve to improve the welfare of patients and communities and previously led a specialist medicinal cannabis Contract Research Organisation.

Julian’s passion for innovation has helped numerous Health Services throughout Australia, including NSW Health, QLD Health, SA Health & Vic Health. Internationally, Julian has conducted complex and large healthcare projects in hospitals across Dubai & Qatar.



Mohammed Aiyaz PhD
Scientific Advisor

Mohammed Aiyaz is an Associate Director for Therapy Watch, at Research Partnership. He holds a PhD in Neuroscience and specialises in developing molecular diagnostic tools that can be translated for use into the clinic effectively and easily. It is with this background that Aiyaz would be able to advise on Greenfern's ongoing and future research and how best to gain added-value from these collaborations.

Aiyaz has worked on a range of therapy areas but specialises in the areas of autoimmune diseases (RA, PSA, AxSpA and PsO) as well as neurological diseases such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s, and supports pharmaceutical commercial teams solve their healthcare challenges for their products by providing insights that add real commercial value for their brand.



Bhaskar Mitra PhD
Scientific Advisor

Dr. Bhaskar Mitra is a visionary food technologist, alternative ingredient developer and functional leader to empower radical and incremental innovation in plant and animal protein rich product categories. He has worked with diverse FMCG conglomerates and food start ups, thereby leading proactive organizations to reformulate and restructure the superfood revolution. 

Dr. Bhaskar Mitra has a master's degree in food safety and risk analysis from University College Dublin, Ireland (V.V Giri Scholar) followed by a doctorate degree in food design and protein functionality from University of Copenhagen, Denmark in collaboration with DMRI. He has served as a Research Officer for Riddet Institute, Massey University, New Zealand, focussing on food process innovation and procreating future functional ingredients. Besides that, he has managed wet extrusion projects at the ETH Zurich-Buhler AG platform in Zurich and St. Gallen, to convert plant protein ingredients into food entities with significant success that led to creation of industrial patents. He is actively involved with European and other global projects with an insatiable drive of offering unique solutions to food manufacturers to overcome critical challenges.

Currently, he is the Alternative Protein Category Leader for Nestle Product Technology Center in Singen, Germany and is focussed on translating innovative concepts from pipeline to the platform and is spearheading the transformation of raw materials into refined and premium end food products. 



Kane Henderson
Renewable Energy Advisor



Kane is an electrical engineer with over 15 years’ experience in the electricity generation sector within New Zealand and Australia. Among this experience he has held specialist hydro power engineering roles within two of New Zealand largest electricity generation companies and has also worked for a major global manufacturer of hydro turbines and equipment executing large power station upgrade projects. He has also spent time consulting and is a member of various power generation industry organisations.

Kane is highly passionate about all forms of renewable power generation and also applies his skills as custodian and operator of the historic Omanawa Falls Power Station. Notably he recently planned and executed a major refurbishment of the 100+ year old plant maximising station efficiency ensuring best use of the natural resource.



Extended team

We also call on a special group of respected individuals and companies that support us regularly behind the scenes across various aspects of the company.

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