Staff & Leadership

Mark Mackay
Executive Director

A founding board member of the NZSF, Mark has been an entrepreneur from childhood. He co-founded and spent 14 years working at the senior levels of the New Zealand telecommunications company, Orcon.

Having built the company from a startup to a multi-million dollar enterprise, he brings a wealth of experience at all levels and areas to the NZSF. In the role of Executive Director, he provides the glue between the leadership team and the Board of Directors -- and brings strong drive and commitment to the role.

In addition to his technical skills, he has passion for effective leadership - and is always pushing himself and others to improve and take on new challenges.

Julie Rowe
Chief Financial Officer

In addition to being a founding board member of the NZSF, Julie is currently engaged within the executive office of the Space Generation Advisory Council in Support of the United Nations Programme on Space Applications as the organisation's Treasurer and New Zealand representative. Previously, she has taken part in SGAC's delegation at the Legal Subcommittee meetings of the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space at the United Nations in Vienna, Austria.

With specific interests in space policy, education and advocacy, Julie brings to NZSF optimism and dedication with the desire to help intensify the general New Zealand community's awareness of the vast socioeconomic benefits of space science and its related applications.

In conjunction with her space interests, Julie has previously been engaged in various operations management and financial management capacities in the NZ/US Film & TV Industry and more recently within the Software Development Industry.

Billy Curle
Industry Relations
In early 2004, Billy formed Advanced New Zealand Technologies to compete in the Ansari X-Prize. However, the prize was soon won by Tier One and Billy returned to developing television systems. 

In January 2010, he entered the N-Prize competition with his start-up Te Anahera Tere. This project is aimed at eventually providing New Zealand and the world with responsive, inexpensive access to space for small payloads. 

Billy joined the New Zealand Space Foundation as an expression of his vision to see New Zealand build an economically strong space sector that competes globally.

William Leizerowicz
Government and Policy

A founding board member of the NZSF, Will has been passionate throughout his life about the long term needs for space access. Following an interest in nuclear based propulsion, he grew his experience in the nuclear power industry working with CANDU reactors and improving the safety and reliability through the design of a new generation of solid state control systems.

He went on to work on research in agile manufacturing and rapid redesign with EIL towards SPAR Aerospace (currently MacDonald Dettwiler) for the Canadarm robotic manupulator used on the shuttle (SRMS). He has also contributed towards large propulsion systems for the X-Prize as well as a combination of tracking and aerodynamic simulation for landing site prediction for recovery.

He has participated internationally in various space meetings and conferences including LPSC, NASA Centenial Challenge, JAXA/JSF Satellite Competition, X-Prize in cities around the world including Flagstaff, Houston, London, Las Cruses, Ramnicu Valcea, Tokyo, Toronto, Tsukuba, Tucson and Yokohama and is currently heading the NZ Orion Project which will be New Zealand's first three stage rocket, and is looking to expand the role of flight computers for improved safetly as well as other scientific research applications.

Iain Finer
Industry Subcommittee

Clemens Berndt
Education Subcommittee

Janice Mackay
Education Subcommittee

Janice is the principal of Glenbrook School.

André Pointon
Law & Policy Subcommittee