our story
who we are
introducing
the ii team
Chris McClimans "Hippie Hacker"
Chief Executive Officer (CEO) hh(at)ii(dot)coopclick for bio
Chris McClimans is first and foremost a visionary. Chris envisions a world where everyone shares their knowledge base as well as their skills and resources. In our world of tech, this happens through open source.
Chris is able to transform systems, structures and even culture by applying his very unique skill sets in software engineering and AI to your business or community group.
Chris has a knack for helping groups identify and isolate challenges to efficiency and progress. He then works alongside you to leverage and transform those previous challenges for the good of your group. This often looks like significant profit increases for large, global entities. And it looks like consistent progress, access to resources and increased quality of life for community groups.
Chris founded ii Limited in Tauranga, New Zealand in 2011, after arrived here in 2010 as part of his global wanderings. Before that, Chris worked primarily out of his VW camper van whilst traveling through his home country, the United States.
Despite his hippie lifestyle and demeanour, Chris' current client list boasts the worlds largest tech companies. Some of his more notable former clients, during his camper van days, include FedEx and Nordstrom.
Now married with two children, Chris now keeps his camper van on a shelf in small lego replica form. When he's not traveling internationally to speak to industry leaders about how ii cutting edge technology directly impacts them, you can find Chris on a couple of acres in Tauranga, either in the adjacent ii offices or checking in on the kumara and tomatoes in the garden.
Josmar (Jay) Hart (Román)
Chief Operating Officer (COO) jay(at)ii(dot)coopclick for bio
Before joining ii.coop in January 2019, Josmar initially moved to New Zealand and started a small firm providing strategic campaign, business, communications and career advice to both local and national politicians, small business owners and young adults in 2011. During her time in New Zealand, Josmar has also worked as a Researcher for the New Zealand Parliament.
Before New Zealand, Josmar worked first as a Researcher for the British Parliament and later as Communications Manager at the Headquarters of a major British political party.
Josmar also worked as an international corporate finance and insolvency lawyer in New York and London after earning a Doctorate in Law from the notable Boston College Law School in the United States.
She also had the opportunity to work in Accra, Ghana for a few months, negotiating reconciliation agreements, organising political and community events and attending an international conference on reconciliation at Lagos University where she had the opportunity to publicly challenge the African Union for failed efforts in various war zones.
Before law school, Josmar served the U.S. Department of Defence as a workplace mediator and employment opportunity specialist. She organised agency-wide events designed to strengthen employee/employer relationships and foster a more collegial work environment. During that time, Josmar was also an Adjunct English Literature Professor for a local community college (tertiary institution).
Josmar also holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science with Honours and double minor in English Literature and History from Monmouth University in the United States.
In addition to taking responsibility for executing the epic vision at ii.coop, Josmar passionately homeschools her two children.
Her most recent speaking engagements have been at Waikato University's School of Engineering in Hamilton, the University of Puerto Rico in Arecibo, Puerto Rico and her alma matter, Monmouth University.
Josmar has traveled to more than thirty-five countries on six continents. She is originally from Peñuelas, Puerto Rico, and is passionate about pasteles, arroz con gandules, piña colada, salsa and percussion. Josmar also enjoys spending a significant portion of her week exploring the New Zealand bush and rivers with her two children.
Stephen Heywood
Developer - stephen(at)ii(dot)coopclick for bio
Stephen Heywood is a cloud-native advocate that brings together 20 years of exploring open source technologies with an extensive set of skills from various industries.
From tertiary education (12 years); corporate IT (5 years) and the electricity sector (8 years), each has provided him with a wealth of information and a long history of industry certifications, he currently holds CCNA from Cisco Systems.
To unwind, Stephen enjoys an eclectic range of hobbies, from architecture, podcasts, movies while learning about different programming languages.
You can reach him on kubernetes slack, @heyste_nz or via email, Stephen (at) ii (dot) coop.
Zach Mandeville
Developer - zach(at)ii(dot)coopclick for bio
Zach had a rich and varied career on his path to ii. He originally worked as a barber, before joining a small tech company (MerchantOS) started by a few of his favourite customers, where he worked as a support hero and training coordinator.
He journeyed with the company through an
acquisition by Lightspeed POS, and moved to a new role of sales engineering. He later became the product manager for Lightspeed's suite of analytic tools,
and worked closely with an external development team building the product (Crank Logic), before they were acquired by Looker.
After this acquisition, Zach was ready for a change, wanting to work more directly with the code and with a company more aligned with his
values.
This led him to study software development with Enspiral and begin his work with ii.
Devan Carpenter
DevOps - devan(at)ii(dot)coopclick for bio
Physically located in Washington State, USA, but virtually found in the office daily, Devan is an integral part of our team here at ii. He brings a consistency and tempered outlook resulting from his years of experience, which are invaluable to the team
With 10 years of experience consulting in IT, Devan finds himself often
in the position of a generalist problem-solver.
In the role of a DevOps
practitioner, having a preferential focus towards UNIX-based automation
(incl. CI/CD), development, and system administration, much of his
recent work is centered around open source infrastructure; Both in "the
cloud" and on the ground.
Previously Devan has worked on a variety of projects related to embedded
Linux systems, wireless networking, encrypted communications, and
distributed systems.
Living quite transiently the past years, he calls the globe itself home,
but hails from Texas originally.
Brenda Peel
Office Administrator - brenda(at)ii dot)coopclick for bio
If you'd like to get in touch with ii, Brenda is your first point of contact.
At ii, Brenda Peel seamlessly coordinates and manages all things administrative, from start to finish, including scheduling and correspondence. There is nothing too big for Brenda to conquer. And she does it all with a smile.
Before moving to New Zealand with her husband and two dogs, Brenda worked as a Publisher Relationship Manager and Digital Project Coordinator in Cape Town, South Africa.
She enjoys experimenting with new recipes (curry, anyone?) and enjoying all that New Zealand has to offer.