Who got that job?

Were you one of the people who applied for this job and wondered who got it?

Job title: General manager, marketing and sales.

For: Industrial Research.


From biscuits to biotechnology. After years hustling fast-moving consumer goods, Jill Newson has made a change to an altogether different industry, the innovative world of commercial industrial research.

Industrial Research aims to expand New Zealand businesses. It develops anything from production-line robots and moisture sensors for kiln-dried timber to a study of the impact on crop plants of the thinning ozone layer.

It's probably the most successful crown research institute, and certainly the brainiest. Newson says it has 140 PhDs among its 300 scientists and engineers.

Her job, based in Parnell, Auckland, is newly created. Much of it will involve building networks of the small and medium-sized businesses - the backbone of the New Zealand economy - likely to invest in high-tech tools.

Newson arrived back in New Zealand at Easter after 10 years overseas.

"Coming back to New Zealand and with all the expertise I'd had in fast-moving consumer goods, I wanted something different," says Newson.

Fast this is not; some projects will take years of development. But she was captivated by the chance to work with "innovative and advanced technologies which are going to be critical in the development of New Zealand".