Meet IBM (NZ)'s new boss Jennifer Moxon

Jennifer Moxon

The new head of IBM in New Zealand is talking up the IT services and software giant's prospects in the local market, saying the global economic crisis has forced organisations to make "fundamental changes" to the way they do business.

Jennifer Moxon takes over as managing director of IBM New Zealand from April 1.

She replaces Katrina Troughton, who has been promoted to a new Shanghai-based role with IBM.

Moxon, a former South Island manager for IBM, has spent the past 10 years based in Sydney and is at present the company's distribution and industrial sector director, a role that involves minding some of IBM's biggest Australian customers, such as mining giant BHP.

She says she has already begun talking to IBM's New Zealand client base before officially starting her new role, which will be based in Wellington.

"The current economic environment clearly represents a challenge for all of us, but it also represents a significant opportunity for companies such as IBM to really pull ahead of the competition," Moxon said.

"The sort of conversations that we're having with our clients are very different to the ones we were having even six months ago.

"Organisations all over the world are really thinking very differently about how they can make fundamental change in their business to increase their effectiveness and efficiency."

Moxon was born in Britain but grew up in New Zealand.

She graduated from Victoria University in Wellington with degrees in business and psychology, and has also completed a business leadership programme at Harvard Business School and a business skills programme at the University of Virginia's Darden School of Business.

While in Australia, Moxon also spent time as IBM's client director for the company's telecommunications industry business.

As New Zealand continues to debate how to best use broadband to boost business productivity - with the help of a promised $1.5 billion government investment in infrastructure - she says she has yet to fully school herself up on local telco issues "but I certainly will have an opinion on that as I get up to speed on those challenges in the marketplace".

IBM employs about 1000 people in New Zealand.