Photo of Finn holding a camera and wearing sunglasses
Photo of Finn holding a camera and wearing sunglasses
Finn Lawrence

The CV of Finn Lawrence

I'm Finn, a driven and enthusiastic people person. I'm passionate about finding ways to leverage technology to make others' lives easier and deliver lasting impact.

I thrive in environments where I can move at pace, make a meaningful contribution, and improve things as I go.

My strengths are my logical thought process, attention to detail, and ability to communicate with and motivate those around me.

  • Digital native

  • Inbox Zero

  • Has an app for everything

  • Spots the spelling mistakes in the newspaper

  • Futurist, feminist, entrepreneur

Photo of a Macbook and DSLR camera on a table
Photo of a Macbook and DSLR camera on a table
Work

Finn's Work

Mevo

September 2014 - Present


Founding Director // Head of Product

Wellington, NZ

Mevo is Australasia's first free-floating car share, launched in Wellington in late 2016. Mevo provides on-demand access to shared fleets of vehicles to registered Members via proprietary mobile apps. Mevo Members can find, reserve, lock and unlock cars using the apps, and only pay for the time they use.

Along with my excellent team, we're scaling a disruptive, high-growth business that is leveraging trends in emerging and exponential technology while delivering a desirable, world-class user experience.

  • Company Strategy

  • Partnership building

  • Technical integration

  • Full-stack development

  • Hiring & team building

Creative HQ

August 2016 - Present


Innovation Specialist - Product

Wellington, NZ

Creative HQ is Wellington's Startup Base. We help bright people build brilliant businesses and fuel growth in the early-stage economy.

My current role is a mix of mentoring and advising early-stage ventures, and working with corporates and government to build internal entreprenurial capability. Additionally, my role includes working with the team on creating innovation management software prouducts as a Product Manager.

  • Lean Startup

  • Mentoring and coaching

  • Business strategy

  • Customer development

  • Stakeholder management

Lightning Lab

October 2015 - July 2016


Programme Manager

Wellington, NZ

Lightning Lab is New Zealand's premier startup accelerator, based on the Techstars acceleration model out of the U.S. The seventh Lightning Lab programme, Lightning Lab XX carried the mission to discover and invest in women-led companies.

I worked with the Programme Director and managed a 7-person operations team. We delivered a full-time in-house programme of mentoring and Lean Startup coaching to a cohort of New Zealand's top early-stage companies.

  • Dealflow acquisition and evaluation

  • Founder mentoring and coaching

  • Product strategy and development

  • Content and social media marketing

  • Venue and event management

Assurity Consulting

July 2014 - October 2015


Consultant

Wellington, NZ

Throughout my time at Assurity I was placed with a number of government and corporate clients on technical delivery work. Primarily, this consisted of infrastructure engineering and automated delivery, with a wider view to enabling digital transformation inside large organisations.

I initiated a number of internal innovation projects, and developed a bespoke internal piece of software to facilitate communication and collaboration across client sites.

  • Stakeholder management

  • Build and deployment automation, scripting

  • Database management and versioning

  • Java back-end development

  • Front-end web development

TradeIntel

February 2014 - July 2014


Founder

Wellington, NZ

Co-founded a data analytics software company and was selected for the 2014 intake of Lightning Lab, New Zealand's premier startup accelerator.

The business was successfully validated and developed throughout the course of the programme. Ultimately, a failure to secure a critical corporate partnership led to the closure of the venture.

  • Email and social media marketing

  • Customer and problem discovery

  • User-testing and research

  • Front-end development

  • Business strategy

Shed 5 Restaurant & Bar

July 2011 - July 2014


Maître d'

Wellington, NZ

Responsible for the daily operations of Wellington’s largest à la carte fine dining restaurant. Management of stock, staff, and customers in a high quality, high pressure, high turnover environment.

This varied from orchestrating wedding receptions and corporate functions, to serving the Prime Minister, to running the cast & crew after-party for the Premiere of The Hobbit.

  • Team leadership and diplomacy

  • Customer experience management

  • Wine & food expertise

  • High performance under pressure

  • Liquor licencing and compliance responsibility

Photo of young Finn on the beach with his dad
Photo of young Finn on the beach with his dad
About

About Finn

I grew up in the south of Spain, in a tiny village nestled in the Alpujarras. At age eleven my family moved to Nelson, where I attended Nelson College. I studied Mechatronics Engineering at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch for another two, before the earthquakes forced a move to Wellington. I cross-credited to a Software Development Diploma at Weltec which I completed while working full time.

  • Native English and Spanish speaker

  • Traversed 5 continents to date

  • Dog person

  • Dual NZ and Irish citizenship

  • Full driver licence

In my spare time I write code, take photos, and drink good beer

Photo of Wellington harbour
Photo of Wellington harbour
Contact

Contact Finn

References available on request.

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