Justin Mercer – CEO at Jade Software Corporation
Host Paul Spain sits down with Justin Mercer, CEO of Jade Software to explore his journey from a competitive Christchurch upbringing to leading innovative tech company Jade. He dives into stories from working around the globe—from door-to-door sales in Christchurch, to summer camps in the US, and building his career in Spain, Africa, and Australia. Justin opens up about the challenges of business transformation, leadership lessons, his strategic approach to scaling Jade’s business internationally and the power of New Zealand tech innovation on the world stage.
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Episode Transcript (computer-generated)
Paul Spain:
Greetings and welcome to the show. I’m your host, Paul Spain, futurist and chief executive at Guerrilla Technology. I love to see individuals and their organizations thrive. The New Zealand Business Podcast is all about this. Through authentic walks through the business and career journeys of top leaders, we help empower you to do better locally and on the global stage. Today I’m joined by Justin Mercer, the Chief executive of Jade Software Corporation. We one of our longest standing tech companies, deeply rooted in Ōtautahi, Christchurch, with reach across the country and around the globe. Justin was with Jade for over a decade before being appointed chief executive in 2023.
Under his leadership, Jade has sharpened its focus on innovation, cost effectiveness and customer experience. He has overseen grassroots digital transformation inside the company, helped launch and expand key product lines such as the ThirdEye, the anti-money laundering and financial crime software, and has guided Jade through tight trading conditions to deliver a strong uplift in profit. Justin is driving a vision for Jade to be more audacious and outspoken in its role in New Zealand, re-establishing Jade as a company of national significance, expanding talent pipelines in tech and exploring how software can contribute to growth in traditional sectors such as agriculture, manufacturing and retail. The New Zealand Business Podcast is brought to you by Guerrilla Technology, the tech services firm helping astute mid-size and smaller New Zealand organisations in solving business problems through leveraging information technology and artificial intelligence whilst driving down cybersecurity and data risks. All right, let’s jump in.
Paul Spain:
Well, great to have you on the podcast. Justin Mercer, thank you very much for taking the time to join us in the Podcasts New Zealand studio today.
Justin Mercer:
Great to be here Paul, thanks for having me.
Paul Spain:
Now always like to start at the beginning. Tell us a little bit about where you grew up and what you did in your childhood years.
Justin Mercer:
Yeah, sure. Well, I’d say I don’t have what you’d call a reality TV ready background there. It’s probably a little bit normal in some ways but maybe some of the themes will resonate with. I mean I very fortunate to grow up in Christchurch. You know, mum was, studied biochemistry at uni and went on and worked in labs and then like a lot of women of her era became a full time mum. So I’ve got one, I’m one of four boys and so I grew up quite a competitive household and dad, he’s very much got that self made man type ethos. He, he became sort of man of the house in his household around 12.
Paul Spain:
Wow.
Justin Mercer:
And so grew up more in a sort of estate based house and put himself through medical school and always had a very strong drive from that perspective. And so I think a lot of that sort of washed off early on. So you know, I think those things around working hard, competing hard were definitely instilled in us at a young age. And then probably around oh, you know, early, early teens my mum went up north, some of my brothers and I stayed in Christchurch with my dad and so all of a sudden we were, you know, he’s working late at the hospital and you know, trying to figure out how to cook and sort of everything else. Figure out for yourself. And so yeah, so I think again that sort of doubled down that whole independence side for me. And I remember, you know, very early on wanting to get my first car pretty much a day or so after you get your license and then that gave me independence and then started working, working actually sort of weekends at McDonald’s. Saving up a bit of cash there and then.
Justin Mercer:
Yeah, through high school I guess, you know that’s really where I started thinking about how to get abroad and actually my first job out of high school was doing door to door sales for sky tv.
Paul Spain:
Oh wow. How was that? Were you successful?
Justin Mercer:
Yeah, I think it sort of taught me a lot around how to. You had to be right on message early on. You’ve only got a small window to make a good impression. Yeah. Traveled around and drove around the south island earning money there and that sort of earned enough to buy a ticket to the States. Fantastic. Went over There and worked in a summer camp and had a bit of fun over there, then went back, came back through Malaysia actually, just before that, actually, 9, 11 happened and so woke up and that was sort of a bit of a change that obviously happened in the world at that point. But, you know, overall that was my first taste of getting abroad and getting a better perspective or broader perspective, I guess, on the world.
Paul Spain:
Yep, yep. So where did you spend time in the us?
Justin Mercer:
I was working at a. At a summer camp over in Pennsylvania there. And then with another mate, we jumped in the car and we drove from New York down to Corpus Christi in Texas, delivered some Volvo, a 1980s Volvo to Corpus Christi, picked up another car and drove that to la.
Paul Spain:
Oh, that sounds like a bit of fun.
Justin Mercer:
Yeah, so that was definitely first taste of getting abroad and then came back to New Zealand and I think, you know, it had always been instilled into me, you’ve got to go to university. Not for any particular reason apart from get that piece of paper. And I think what it did sort of teach me also is that, you know, I wanted to be very focused and get through university as quickly as possible and get that ticket. So I ended up studying international business at Otago and Spanish is my minor, so. And then my last year I finished at a business school in Barcelona and yeah, was working and studying over there.
Paul Spain:
So was that your initial plan was to go to Spain or.
Justin Mercer:
It was a prerequisite with the degree is you had to spend your last year abroad at a university and yeah, I managed to condense my papers and get them all done over there, so I didn’t have a reason to come back, so to speak, at the end of it. Yeah, yeah. And so that sort of found me in Barcelona in sort of mid to late 2004. And I just remember, you know, young kid from Christchurch in the big city lights of Barcelona. Yeah, I had no sort of desire to go home anytime soon and I was working in a bar there and I was trying to break into the corporate world in Spain, which was quite tough actually at the time because obviously all your interviews are in Spanish.
Paul Spain:
Yeah. And how was your Spanish at that point?
Justin Mercer:
Well, it was passable in the clubs and the bars, but I don’t know if I could get deep on the. On the business side of things. So I guess, long story short, I was really down to the wire. I had about $500 left in the bank account and I used to go to the school, to the business school where I finished my degree to use their free WI Fi and one day I ran into this bloke who said, oh, what are you doing here? All the other international students have gone home six months ago. And anyway, he said, look, my cousin works for a. A company that looks for dual English. Spanish speakers, English and Spanish speakers. And, you know, do you want to see if I can get you an interview? So it was literally, I think, about two weeks before Christmas and sort of had to roll the dice.
Justin Mercer:
Do I spend the rest of my money on a suit for this interview or do I, you know, try and travel a bit before I get my ticket back? And so brought the suit and went to the interview and got the job. And I remember being in the interview and they said, right, you know, you’ve ticked all the boxes. The interview was mainly in Spanish and a little bit of English at the end, okay. And they said, write your first assignments in Rwanda. And I knew Rwanda was in Africa, but I didn’t know much about it. But of course I thought, oh, you’ve got to play it cool here. So, you know, left the interview, went home, told my flatmates I was off to Rwanda, and then sort of Googled it and suddenly realised where I was going and what I was up to. So that started the beginning of three years with this company traveling around with.
Justin Mercer:
Doing interviews and gathering content for promotional articles I do in magazines like Fortune magazine and Businessweek. Yeah.
Paul Spain:
Wow. How much of a shock to the system was it to, you know, to land in Rwanda? Because that I’m picking would have been a somewhat different lifestyle than what you were accustomed to and I guess, yeah. Interested to hear a little bit more around where you traveled to and that look like.
Justin Mercer:
Yeah, I mean, that three years in a nutshell was about a year in Africa, about a year and a bit in the Caribbean, and the remainder of the time between Eastern Europe and in Asia. I think, you know, every. Every country’s got its own, you know, quirks and interesting stories. You know, I think, you know, within Africa, I was going to lots a range of places like Ethiopia, Nigeria, Uganda. But I think the biggest thing, regardless of whether it was Africa or the Caribbean or otherwise, is you really get perspective on a global, you know, this global world we’re part of and actually how fortunate we are in New Zealand and how good we’ve got it. And fundamentally, you know, everyone out there is just trying to get ahead of life, you know, regardless of whether you grow up in Rwanda or you. Yes, you grow up in New York. And, you know, everyone just wants to have a better life for themselves and for their kids.
Justin Mercer:
And I think it’s really grounding not only cause you get perspective on different cultures and different ways of doing things, but that to remember that when sometimes you think your chips are down actually there’s a lot of people doing it out there tough and they are taking a glass half full to their situation. So you know, that I think really stuck with me.
Paul Spain:
Yeah, it’s certainly something I’ve noticed with some of the places that you travel which are very different to New Zealand. And yeah, you can, you see people that are so positive and you know, just seem to be in a great space but you know, you recognize that, you know, their lot in life is, you know, certainly starting out is very, very, very different to ours but you can still be bring positivity to those situations, right?
Justin Mercer:
Yeah. And it’s not trying to downplay, you know, how tough it is. I mean, obviously I can’t pretend that I know what it’s like growing up in an environment like that. But I think it is a reminder sometimes where we get a bit down and out on the troubles at home that, you know, there’s a whole portion of the population out there that are competing with us on a business level. They’re all trying to create businesses and create companies and you know, whether it’s grow in their domestic market or export abroad. And I think it’s probably important to remember that when we are trying to compete on a global scale as well. And that’s often what I really enjoy about travelling with Jade and getting out of Christchurch. Love being in Christchurch, love the resurgence there.
Justin Mercer:
But it’s always good to get perspective of actually where we sit in the world and sometimes what we think people are talking about us, they actually don’t even know we exist down here in New Zealand. So I think it’s always good to get that perspective.
Paul Spain:
Yeah, yeah. Looking at your time in the US before you studied, do you think that sort of shaped you? Do you think you sort of took away some learnings? Because there’s a, you know, there’s a whole sort of different approach I guess in the U.S. and you know, I often hear about it in the startup world and like, oh, I went to the U.S. and you know, learnt this and this and this and this. But you know, you went there, you know, much younger. Do you think anything really sort of stuck with you from the US that helped you as you went to different parts of the world?
Justin Mercer:
Well, I think probably the US I visited is probably slightly different to the US today. But what definitely struck me from that time in the US, which was largely pre 9 11, was this sense of identity, of wanting to be American, you know, wanting to, I guess, achieve and grow in the sense that, you know, they really had limitless ambition and possibilities. And I guess the other thing that really stuck with me from that is, you know, you’ve got to put yourself out there and be bold and be audacious, to stand out sometimes in the crowd. And a bit about that is just getting that self confidence to back yourself, you know, will back your company or back your team.
Paul Spain:
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it’s important, isn’t it? So what led to that, that era in a Spanish company, was it? Or were they a more international company that you were with?
Justin Mercer:
Yeah, so. So they were based in Spain and obviously had different subsidiaries they work with and those different entities. So, I mean, that was a great experience. Got to see a lot of things, got to, to meet a lot of people and yeah, I distinctly remember I was having a chat with my mum actually at the time in Ethiopia, and she said, why don’t you get a real job? And I think what she was trying to say is, you know, you’ve been traveling out of a suitcase for three years, how come you? Why don’t you come home? So actually, around 2007, I came back to New Zealand and I wasn’t actually planning on staying. I had a ticket booked to go over to Melbourne and a friend sent me a job advert for the trade agency, New Zealand Trade Agency in Wellington. So ended up working there for a year and a half. And look, I learned I don’t want to stay in government. That’s probably my key takeaway.
Justin Mercer:
But it was really interesting actually understanding the inner workings of our government. That role in particular was kind of an advisory communications role, that liaison between the department CEO and the ministers. So Minister of Trade, Minister of Economic Development. And so, of course, we were writing a lot of the briefing papers that went up to the ministers. So you got a unique perspective on almost the influence that those agencies can have in the messaging. But also it was a great opportunity to get perspective of New Zealand business and New Zealand exporters. And that’s what really attracted me to the role in the first place. And, you know, probably with, you know, great sort of naivety, I thought, you know, I’d make a big impact on all these New Zealand businesses.
Justin Mercer:
And I think, you know, another key takeaway from that is actually you’ve got to go really deep in an industry, in a sector to understand it and be able to deliver that Value back. But it was a great opportunity to get exposure to all these amazing New Zealand companies that are taking on the world. And also, I guess, really reaffirmed my belief that I wanted to be on that side of the fence, so to speak.
Paul Spain:
Yeah. So what were the biggest takeaways? Because you must have seen so many things from a business perspective as well as a government perspective. What did you get to see and become aware of in terms of how our businesses do on the world stage and our strengths and weaknesses?
Justin Mercer:
Well, I think the first thing is you couldn’t write a script to pick what businesses are going to come through. I mean, and I’m sure you’ve heard that before, but it is hard to pick winners. And I remember some of the companies that were coming through and growing rapidly are never sectors or solutions or propositions that you would. Would have thought. So that. That was number one. So I can see it’s very hard from a government perspective to put in place certain policies that. Based on the assumption that this sector’s gonna be our sector, that we’re gonna work.
Paul Spain:
Yeah. I mean, so much of it comes down to the people, doesn’t it? And you put the right people into an impossible situation, they will achieve the impossible. So often it’s tied up in the people, isn’t it? And we look at some of the incredible successes we’ve had as a country, and yeah, quite often there they’re not in areas that anyone would have predicted a decade or two in advance. So it’s kind of the combination. And sometimes people achieve what seems impossible in a particular area.
Justin Mercer:
I think probably the other thing I’d call out is that it was clear that there were certain regions where the sort of services government could offer were a lot more valuable at that time. And that probably evolves as well. But going into markets like China, where you’ve got that sort of COVID air cover from a government agency, I think seemed to be very beneficial for a number of the exporters. Whereas, you know, going into Australia or something like that, a lot easier to do business there. So I think also there’s certain places in the world where a bit of government support is helpful, even if it’s more in just opening those diplomatic doors.
Paul Spain:
Yes. Cause I imagine it quite often is it’s back to the people who you can introduce to who. And in the right places, rather than that the government’s got some sort of magic key to a book.
Justin Mercer:
Yeah, yeah.
Paul Spain:
But it can be one introduction can make all the difference or.
Justin Mercer:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, the power of the network and saw that a little bit at the Jade Velocity event is incredible. So, yeah, that was my. That was my time in government.
Paul Spain:
Yeah, yeah.
Justin Mercer:
Highlight was we got to dust off the Spanish again and organise a delegation with the Spanish king. He came over with some Spanish businesses at the time and then, yeah, finished up with them, took a sabbatical, I guess you’d call it. Went off to South America for about a year and then came back and landed in Sydney and that’s really where my journey with Jade begins.
Paul Spain:
Yeah, that’s interesting. Now, South America, I’ve never been there, but any observations or learnings? I know, you know, we’ve got, you know, I guess an increasing amount of business that New Zealand does with South America. I don’t know if Jade does any business with South America, but any sort of observations you can share?
Justin Mercer:
Well, yeah, I think though, it’s those networks again. Key ajade partner as the Madcap Dairy Software. He does a lot of business in South America, throughout Argentina and Brazil. And I know it is. It’s all about the networks getting in, sometimes getting those business brokers to help you get the right relationships and even whether it’s around the more volatile economies where you need to start hedging, how you receive payments, et cetera. But ultimately, I think it’s about, you know, being really clear on. On your value proposition, building those networks. I know, you know, the team at Contec who have the Madcap product, you know, leveraged the All Blacks playing there with the Argentinians the other day.
Justin Mercer:
So. No, I think outside of that, to be honest, a lot of my time in South Sequira was South America, was. Was more surfing and on the beach, so didn’t get too close to the business world over there.
Paul Spain:
Yeah, yeah. So. So why. Why Australia? Why did. Why did you. You. You end up in Sydney?
Justin Mercer:
Yeah, I think just at the time, I wasn’t quite ready to come back to New Zealand and it felt like the right balance between sort of a big enough city at the time and close enough to home and. Yeah, so landed in Sydney and I was doing a bit of contract work there, still with the trade agency. And then this, you know, opportunity came up with Jade.
Paul Spain:
So this was around 2012 sort of timeframe.
Justin Mercer:
Yeah, that’s right. So I was interviewed for that role and it was really around how to grow their services business in Australia. I remember joining, I met Craig Richardson, who was the CEO at the time of Jade, and met with him and he spoke about what he wanted to do with the company. And then I joined the office and I think it was probably maybe six months later, that’s when Wynyard separated from Jade. So quickly I went from being kind of a part of a team to an office of one as they separated out the business and listed that on the stock exchange.
Paul Spain:
Yeah, right. So for those that aren’t familiar, maybe tell us a little bit about what Jade has traditionally done and then what Wynyat Group was about. Yeah, okay, just sort of fill in the picture there.
Justin Mercer:
Be with me here for about five minutes after I give you the kind of the short version of Jade’s history. So, 47 years old, tech company based out of Christchurch. It was actually started in 1978 by Gil Simpson and Peter Hoskins, now Sir Gill Simpson. And the original language they developed is a programming language called linq and it ran on mainframes and it ran on top of what was called Unisys. Before that it was actually Burrows which merged with another company. But long story short, it was this programming language which ran on top of Unisys systems and use mainframe compute. And that was a roaring success. They started building what they called the Link Development center in Christchurch.
Justin Mercer:
1982, 87, they opened sort of stage two of that. The former Prime Minister David Longy opened that facility.
Paul Spain:
Yes.
Justin Mercer:
And then not long after that, I think that same year they launched Cardinal Networks. So that was really a front runner to cloud computing. And what they do is they buy up compute capacity on mainframes and then run other systems on it. So really pioneering stuff at the time, both in terms of the vision for helping make computers easier to program and how you’d use distributed compute. And so that the two main parts of the business. And then somewhere along the way there, I think it was around 96, they launched the Jade language, which was the next evolution. And things went a little bit south in terms of the relationship with Unisys. Unisys started to come and direct into Australia and the decision at the time was, well, we’ll go along, we’ll go alone and we’ll actually migrate a bunch of these link systems onto Jade.
Justin Mercer:
And so that really became the end of the Jade Unisys relationship. But at that point, there was a number of Jade systems running all around the world at that point, underpinning big insurance businesses, banks. And then a number of big systems were built from 96 onwards that underpin and continue to underpin critical parts of infrastructure around New Zealand and further abroad. So, you know, if you think about electricity registry in New Zealand, that’s entirely run by, by a Jade system. There’s railway systems over in Europe running on Jade, there’s big inventory management systems running on Jade. So there’s these amazing breadth of systems that were built on Jade. And so that was one part of the business and the other part was very much around product development, product innovation. So these are software products built on top of the Jade platform as we call it today.
Justin Mercer:
And so they were products that were built for education, for healthcare, for ports and logistics. And then around 2003, effectively the business had been spread too thin on both those fronts and needed capital. And that’s at that point we, Skipton stepped in and became a shareholder.
Paul Spain:
Okay.
Justin Mercer:
Along with a US investor.
Paul Spain:
Skipton UK based, right?
Justin Mercer:
Yeah. So Skipton Group, UK based, a member owned bank and real estate group. And I’ve got to say they’ve just been absolutely fabulous for Jade in terms of stability but also investment in Jade. But I can come back to that. So if you continue down along that timeline then you get to around 2013 when Craig came in and took over and bundled up a number of the cyber and financial crime type products and listed that as Winyard on the stock exchange in 2013. And then that went on to build for a couple of years. But again the thing that undid them there was really around execution I guess in an end and ran out of cash and that imploded unfortunately in 2016. And so then from there there’s separating of the logistics business.
Justin Mercer:
So that happened the ports logistics business and that’s where skipton really became 100% shareholder towards the end of 2019 and then the last few remaining shares around 2022.
Paul Spain:
Yeah, yeah. Oh it’s, it’s quite fascinating and quite a, quite a history. I had a chance to chat with, with Sigil in Christchurch recently and boy there’s, there’s, there’s a lot of, a lot of stories in there behind the scenes and. Yeah, really, you know, I think when, you know, when you look across Jade’s story it seems to be a lot of innovation from some, you know, incredible, you know, early days ideas and that, that kind of continues on today. So you know, really, really inspiring. What, what can be achieved.
Justin Mercer:
Yeah, I think, I mean the, the final part of that story is that underpinning both these big parts of the business, the, the enterprise side and, and, and the product side is, is the Jade platform and that remains true today and we continue to invest heavily in the platform. I think the, the key probably change from Gil’s days is around Or Sir Gil, is that we start to think more holistically about the platform and the different technology that we use to make up that platform. And at its heart it’s around how do we make enable entrepreneurs to build really clever software on top of it. And our community has shown that they can do that, they can do it really fast, effectively and it’s super robust once it’s built on that. And so, and that’s how you’ve got these from the outside, quite small companies underpinning, you know, whether it’s giant dairy supply chains or whether it’s throughout food manufacturing or whether it’s, you know, running our largest tourist attractions in New Zealand. So it’s a real honour to lead the business and to continue that investment and continue to grow the community.
Paul Spain:
Yeah, yeah, that’s great. So from coming on in that sort of initial role and then finding as things sort of split with Wynyard Group that it was just you in Sydney there because what would the team have been before that split There was.
Justin Mercer:
Yeah, so you’d have a mixture of your sales, your support, some engineers, pre sales engineers there. Definitely smaller compared to the head office in Christchurch. But yeah, it was definitely a tough period. And I think if you go back to the, the story I was sharing right at the start, when you’ve got this innate kind of want to succeed and desire to somehow find a way through that very much I tapped into that. When you know you’re in a box for yourself in Sydney trying to start a business, I think like anything you’ve got to build a good team around you. At that point it was about leaning back into New Zealand and getting as many people as I could to help me and, and I quickly learned that trying to sell technology is not the way to go. People fundamentally don’t want to buy technology, they want to buy a solution, that’s it, or a product that gives them an outcome that they’re looking for. And so there were a number of sort of iterations.
Justin Mercer:
I remember we were about 12 months in and I thought, God, I’m probably going to get X this year. Hadn’t made much progress in terms of the business development and we finally brought on a couple of customers, good well known brands in Australia at the end of that year and fundamentally that was about, you know, making that pivot mid year to go let’s stop trying to pitch this new integration mobile platform which was what it was at the time and let’s start to. It was in that era of the App Store had really exploded A lot of businesses are trying to grapple with what their digital experience looks like, you know, whether they’re building mobile apps or, or portals, et cetera. And so it was very much around how do we bring in the right design capabilities and technology capabilities to help them bring to life what is it that these business folk have in their head and then build from there. So that really went on and then from there I started to lead the customer team in Australia and expand that out and we grew the team to around 20 in Australia over that period and that involved a lot of work in the financial services space. But yeah, I was really proud of that period. Not only because, you know, I think it’s one thing building a business when you’re, when you’re the founder and you can call the shots and it’s another thing where you’ve got to try and influence, you know, people along the way.
Paul Spain:
Yeah. And so when you got, when you, when you started in Australia, what was there in terms of existing clients? Was there anything to start with?
Justin Mercer:
Yeah, there’s definitely a couple of what you’d call your traditional clients that were mainly running systems that had already been built prior and there hadn’t been a big evolution of those systems. And the mandate that I was given was very much go and find new. And so that’s what it was really about, building a brand new booker business.
Paul Spain:
And how did you do that? Because, you know, I guess Jade wasn’t a household name in Australia. Right. It’s not. You’re rolling into town and you’re a big Silicon Valley company that everyone’s heard of. You know, what was your take and your approach to, you know, to go out and effectively, you know, win this business? Probably from, from scratch in most cases.
Justin Mercer:
Yeah. So a key part of that, I remember we were pitching for the largest life insurers business at the time called Tao. And you know, we knew to stand out, we had to bring it to life somehow in terms of our capability and offering. So that was really about convincing the, you know, the leaders at Jade at the time that this was an opportunity worth going after and putting in that effort to actually do our own customer research. So ahead of the, during the tender process, we went out and interviewed customers, brought the proposition to life and actually showcased that research and our vision for where we could go with it as part of the tender process. It got us in the door, so to speak, and we got this very small piece of work and then naturally you over service on the first piece, over deliver, that got us some more work. And then we knew to really bring to life the capabilities of Jade, we had to fly the management from the insurer over to New Zealand. So we hosted their, I think it was chief Innovation Officer at the time, GM and their CIO and brought them to Christchurch and gave them a broader view of the capability that Jade had.
Justin Mercer:
And then once we had that and we started to go deeper into that financial services vertical.
Paul Spain:
Fantastic. That’s great. And then moving on from your role as Director of Customer Solutions in Australia, what happened from there?
Justin Mercer:
Yeah, so at that point we had started to reinvest in our financial crime product, an AML solution called Jade thirdeye, which really helps customers detect and prevent financial crime. And there was an opportunity to get more involved leading that side of the business from a growth perspective and, and that was enjoyable to learn more about a SaaS sales cycle and I guess just that product development side. So led that part of the business, growing that across Australia, New Zealand and the uk and started to get more exposure to what we were doing outside of Australia and learning a new industry. And then from there it got to that point, by the stage, I failed to mention, I actually met my wife when I was in South America and she was going north, I was going south and she was a Sydney girl and might have been part of the reason why I landed there as well. Paul. Anyway, we reconnected and you know, by this stage, fast forward, we’ve got three little kids and we’re living in a two bedroom apartment in Sydney and thought, right, it’s time to give New Zealand a crack. And Jade were great, they enabled me to come back to New Zealand with that role. We enjoyed a bit of quarantine and all the goodness that goes with that character building moments.
Justin Mercer:
And then we landed in Christchurch and shortly after that took on the responsibilities for customer and customer success more broadly across the business, just helping grow across all our product lines, including the Jade platform. So again, got got broader awareness of the different parts of Jade and then the opportunity came up in mid 2023 to lead the business.
Paul Spain:
Exciting. And so, you know, what did that process look like? Cause these things can vary a bit, right, in terms of how it all comes together. How did that play out for you?
Justin Mercer:
Yeah, I think if I’m entirely honest, I never had designs on thinking, all right, I’ll be CEO of Jade. It was, I think if I come back to some of those things at the start, you know, working hard, backing yourself, taking a few risks here and there, and when the opportunity came up, you know, immediately I said, you know, I’m happy to step in as interim CEO. So this was around the start of that year and so was interim CEO. Went through the process with all the external candidates and, you know, had the opportunity to present first time, what my vision was for the company and where I saw it going, and not only to the chair of our board, but also to the shareholders over in the uk. So I think it’s a combination of sometimes getting yourself in the right position to take that shot and then. Yeah, and then was appointed into the role sort of late April 2023.
Paul Spain:
Yeah. Great. So, you know, tell us about this journey over the last, you know, the last, you know, couple of years. Now you’re responsible sort of, you know, start to finish to the board, your shareholders and your team and your customers. That’s a pretty big responsibility to carry, you know, have you enjoyed that? What’s, you know, what have been the, I guess the highlights and the highs and lows and the lows of this?
Justin Mercer:
Yeah, well, first and foremost, it’s a great honour to lead Jade in such a great company with such a rich pedigree of history in tech in New Zealand. And I think the, you know, the key part for me, I definitely, you know, going into the role, you probably don’t, you know, feel the gravitas until you’re in the role and then suddenly you think, right, you know, I’ve got this legacy here that I want to build on and maintain and grow. But yeah, for me, it was all about a couple of things. Getting really close to our customers. That was number one for me. It’s a part of the business I’d always come from. But I think naturally you hear it repeated again and again. There’s a reason for it.
Justin Mercer:
You’ve really gotta love your customers, understand what their pain points are to help inform, you know, some of you thinking about where to take the business. I think the other thing is, you know, transformation is hard and we often talk about startups and scaling companies, but I think, you know, transforming an enterprise is right up there. Obviously, I can’t say I’ve done both, but I think just from the outside looking in, I think there’s a number of parallels around whether it’s time it takes, you think it’s going to take to do something, whether there’s times where you’ve got to be really bold and make bigger decisions to get the cultural change you need and. Or sometimes saying no to things to make sure that you’ve got enough, focus on where you want to take the business. So I guess for me, the other thing I’d probably really stands out is, and I’m sure a lot of your listeners will resonate as soon as you’re in that CEO role. Everyone’s got an opinion, and some of that you expect, do we have a different type of drink in the fridge? And some of them is much broader around what some perceptions are, around what you should or shouldn’t do as a leader. And so I think that’s probably one of my biggest learnings and takeaways. In that first sort of six to nine months, you’re trying to grapple with where you want to take the business, but also this leadership role that you’re playing.
Justin Mercer:
And it’s actually, I think if there was one kind of big lesson for me, it’s to be really authentic. And there’s no shortage of leadership coaches and leadership experts who will tell you how to lead and what to do. But at the end of the day, I think you’ve got to back yourself around why you’re there and what’s got you to where you are. And then, you know, that doesn’t mean that you close yourself off to learning. I think 100%. You’ve got to have this mindset of curiosity, continuous development and learning. But I think it’s also important to trust your gut on what your style is and own that, because people quickly, they see through that.
Paul Spain:
Yeah. In terms of challenges that you came into, be it sort of, you know, culture or, you know, financial types of things. Yeah. What did you have to kind of face up to and get your head around?
Justin Mercer:
Yeah. I think the first thing for me was really important to bring some stronger commercial discipline to the business. And there were a couple of reasons for that. One is fundamentally, you know, having a strong commercially performing business gives you more options and more choice. People want to be part of a. Of a business that’s growing and is successful, but also it’s about demonstrating that credibility with the shareholder to give options further down the line and whether that’s, you know, investing in new product development, in organic growth. So that was number one was really get good commercial discipline into the business. You know, the second one was obviously surrounding yourself with great people and, you know, really taking time to recruit the team.
Paul Spain:
And how hard is that when you’re in a business that’s been around for, you know, substantial period of time and, you know, sometimes in those cases, you might have folks that have been around for a long time and, you know, they bring a lot of knowledge, but, you know, as times change, you might want to shape culture in a different way. And, you know, you talked about the commercial aspect sort of, you know, needing to sometimes ramp those sort of things up and, you know, folks are sort of there that are. That are maybe, you know, being quite comfortable and you actually need to turn the heat up or turn the dial up in different areas.
Justin Mercer:
Yeah.
Paul Spain:
How challenging is that?
Justin Mercer:
Yeah, I think that, you know, definitely a lot of learnings through that. I mean, fundamentally, I think there’s two ways you can approach any transformation. You can start with, okay, this is what the strategy is, and then I recruit for that, or you make a decision that the environment that you’ve got there on day one doesn’t facilitate the right discussion. And so for me, it was the latter. So I first and foremost looked at changing the structure, taking out some roles and recruiting in roles while we drove the commercial discipline we needed. And then once I felt we had the right team, then refreshed the strategy and in strong collaboration with the Jade board, and we also had a refresh of the Jade board. And so, I mean, ultimately that is about just, you know, facing into tougher conversations, having those conversations with humility, you know, being fair and transparent around what you’re trying to achieve. But also ultimately, you know, it’s taking this balanced view of risk and how much change you want to do at certain points because, you know, you need to also maintain a level of continuity from knowledge and experience.
Justin Mercer:
So, you know, it’s. I think it’s always a balancing act. There’s no right or wrong way to do that. And for me, I’ve been very fortunate that, you know, some of the team wanted to be part of the new mission and stay on and they had that longevity. And some we were able to attract actually from up here in Auckland and come down and be part of the new team.
Paul Spain:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, these sort of challenges are pretty hard to navigate with sort of empathy and in a way that ultimately you’re not going to be able to please everybody when you have to make, you know, you have to make bigger changes.
Justin Mercer:
Yeah, I mean, there’s a lot of things I think I’m sure a lot of your listeners will resonate with in terms of navigating change in the business world at the moment. We’ve gone through that wave of COVID out the other side, you know, what that means from ways of working and certain lifestyles that have developed and. And I think it’s just being really clear on what you want to achieve and why it’s the why behind it at the end of the day. And a lot of the transformation really comes down to simple communication and just repeating that message around why this change is being made. And ultimately I think if people can understand the why, they’ll get on board with that. Some won’t. But also I think you’ve got to be brave enough to stand up and say, well, we are transforming and going in this direction and maybe that’s not for everyone, but that’s okay as well.
Paul Spain:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you know, how does, how does the business look, look now? You know, a couple, couple of years on and down the, down the track.
Justin Mercer:
Yeah, I’m really happy with, with, you know, where we are today. I think like any CEO, you want to have done more and have gone and gone faster, but I think we’re really well positioned in terms of our strategy in executing. We’re reinvesting in the Jade platform and so some of those new capabilities we showcased at the Jade Velocity Summit down in Christchurch. So how we incorporate AI and AI agents into the platform and they’ll be released over the coming months and how we drive further productivity for the teams that are building products and solutions on top of Jade, more around what we’re doing to get data in and out of these systems. I mean, at the end of the day, as people say, you don’t have any AI without data and that’s your fuel. And the beauty around a lot of the Jade customer base is that rich data they’ve got so more capability in that space. And fundamentally if I come up the stack and look at the actual business, we’ve got a great financial crime product in Jade, thirdeye that’s been growing around that 25% year on year mark for around five years now.
Paul Spain:
What sort of customers do you have using thirdeye?
Justin Mercer:
Yeah, so we’ve got a mixture of banks using it, we’ve got wealth managers using it, we’ve got your foreign exchange houses using it, casinos using it across New Zealand, Australia and the uk. And in particular what we’ve found is a really good product market fit for that product is around non bank lending banks and wealth management. And so, you know, again, that’s one of the things that quite often people don’t know from the outside is that Jade processes and detects a lot of pattern recognition across transactions throughout New Zealand and Australia. So quite proud of the role we play in detecting and preventing financial crime in New Zealand. And as we’ve grown more market share in that space, I can see the next leap there. And how we do more with the data in terms of harnessing that to provide an even enhanced service to customers. So that’s a big part of it in terms of growing the financial crime product. The other big part is how we scale the other SaaS products from our partners on top of Jade.
Justin Mercer:
And again, a lot of people don’t know that Jade runs under the hood and whether that’s helping them from a brand and marketing perspective, whether it’s actually helping them from a managed service perspective so they can free up to look on, develop more features for their customers. But you’ll definitely see more in the market around how we are helping these great products grow. You know, in some of if I was just going to list off a few of those, you’ve got the likes of, of VCare, which does all the, the management of beds for aged care providers. So all throughout New Zealand, you know, a lot of the aged care facilities are running on, on VCare, which is powered by Jade. If you’ve gone to, you know, Hobbiton or some of the great walks that it’s all running on a, on a Jade system. The Sydney Harbour Bridge climb, that’s all running on the custom link software. So Sam and the team are doing a great job scaling that. And then you’ve got the likes of Abel, who have a tool for food manufacturing to really trace food and supplies all throughout their supply line, do all the invoicing and billing, et cetera.
Justin Mercer:
And so you’ve got these amazing products that are underpinning big parts of the economy. So we’re doing a lot to help them scale and grow and a lot of them are already in multiple markets around the world. And so it’s how do we start to really flex that community to take the next step forward? And the final part of that puzzle was around how we make it easier to learn Jade and help the next wave of entrepreneurs come in. So we’ve already got a number of NZQA accredited providers teaching Jade. It’s how we take that course further and we are very much of the mindset that people will use Jade in conjunction with other technologies. And so it’s about how we make that as seamless as possible.
Paul Spain:
Yeah, I guess, yeah. Today it’s really key, right, to have that interoperability with whatever technologies that an organisation wants to use. So why do you think that Jade’s still around and you’re able to sort of keep getting the traction you are, you keep winning more deals. It was interesting chatting to just some of your partners at the event in Christchurch and just hearing some of their stories and but you know, one of them was talking about they were handling all the payments for Nestle, I think, to the farms that, providing milk to, you know, to Nestle. Contec.
Justin Mercer:
Contec C O N T E C. Yep.
Paul Spain:
They were in there as a provider, you know, for maybe one market and Nestle was in, you know, I don’t know, 15, 20, 20 markets and they wanted to standardize in on one product and the product that was built on Jade, you know, that, that won on the day and took, you know, took over globally. And then they were, they were saying, oh, you know, now we’re, now we’re being brought in to, to handle, handle that for, you know, paying coffee growers, you know, in all of the countries that, and just hearing these sort of stories of New Zealand successes on the global stage and you look to sort of Silicon Valley and the Microsofts and so on of this world and varying open source platforms and to know, hey, we’ve got Kiwi technology here that has been winning for a long time and is continuing to win and to score these sort of big deals. It’s pretty exciting. Why do you think that’s happening? What is it that’s sort of special there?
Justin Mercer:
Well, I think if you talk to any of the Jade partners, the one thing that comes through is that they’ve built products on Jade which really tackle the complex and they leverage a lot of the great capabilities that are in the product, which is how you can model complex situations and then have that coupled with the really powerful database that is within the product to do things which are maybe a little bit harder to do in other technologies, or you’re suddenly starting to stitch together a few different pieces of technology. And so, you know, every company, whether it’s Contec, as you mentioned, who have the Madcap product, whether it’s someone like Simplify, who do all the complex rules for workforce management for supermarkets and all the pay roles for that. A lot of them have taken what is quite a complex problem to solve and done it in a really elegant way, in simple way. And so then, you know, through that they have just been laser focused on the niche that they want to go into and gone really deep in that. And so, and then through that you start to integrate other data sources or connect them to different systems and that really cements their competitive advantage. So, you know, it’s great to showcase more of these Jade partners and also I think tell those success stories because that’s going to be a key part for the Next generation coming in. Like you said, often we look offshore around, well, what’s happened over there? But there are these amazing businesses that are part of the jade community that are really competing on this world stage and winning. And I think the more we can celebrate those, the more, you know, potentially that next entrepreneur will build on jade.
Paul Spain:
And I mean we look to say Xero, which has had, you know, incredible sort of dominance, you know, across, you know, small business accounting globally. But you know, you were talking there about, you know, having that real, you know, focus on a niche. You know, I often sort of ponder like, you know, what does the future look like for New Zealand in terms of, you know, where we can win when it comes to software? And, and yeah, I often come back to thinking, hey, it’s about being able to find these niches that aren’t being served well with the right sort of technologies, which seems to be sort of where I guess a lot of your successes have been.
Justin Mercer:
Yeah, I think the other bit which is really interesting is you start to see some of these different partners now seeing complementary parts of their product suite. And I think it comes back to that theme of, of backing winners or trying to pick winners is sometimes you start off with a really tight focus in a nation. You go really deep and build your value proposition around that and you can’t predict whether that, say that solution will then be used for coffee or used for a different commodity or that there might be a really nice overlap between say a mid market dairy company that uses the Abel software and a content product and suddenly they’re starting to share data. So back to your question around, you know, where does the future look like for New Zealand software and where do we win and succeed globally? You know, I truly believe it starts in those niches, those niches with a global mindset from day one. But building that in winning and going really deep in that vertical and then from there other opportunities will emerge that you could never predict.
Paul Spain:
Do a great job of one thing and then the next opportunities open up. You know, I guess looking back on your learnings, if you were to share, you know, one or two bits of advice with our listeners that, you know, that you think can make a difference for a leader, for an organisation, what would those things be?
Justin Mercer:
Well, I think I’ll break it into two parts. One on a personal level, I think it’s just really important to maintain your own energy level. So back to those basics around eating, sleeping, exercise. You know, I find, you know, that is key for myself and then if I look more broadly I mean, you’ve got all the ones that are. You’re here time and time again around, staying really close to your customers, surround yourself with good people. But for me, the ones that I’d build on that is be authentic. You’ve got to carve out your own style and not try and be anyone else. So that would be be number one for me.
Justin Mercer:
And number two would be keep it simple. It’s so easy to over complicate. Whether it’s the messaging, the strategy, just keep it really simple. And that helps with how you can communicate it externally, but also internally. And yes, it will take longer than you think, but stay the course.
Paul Spain:
Yeah, that’s great. And how have you kept it simple? Because there’s a lot of complexity in the technology. There’s a lot of different offerings that Jade’s involved in. So how have you been able to keep that simple?
Justin Mercer:
Yeah, well, ultimately, our core mission is all about helping SaaS, specialized products built on scale that are built on top of the Jade platform. And a lot of the things that we do, whether it’s helping enterprise customers who need to resolve a, an issue, it’s how do we resolve that in a way that delivers value for them, but can bake that back into the platform, which goes out to the community. And so having that as the North Star is really helpful because every time you’ve got a trade off of decisions, you can go back to that and ultimately, you know, is this the right call to make or not?
Paul Spain:
Oh, well, thank you very much. It’s a real privilege to catch up and to chat with you. Thank you, Justin.
Justin Mercer:
Oh, thanks for having me, Paul.
Paul Spain:
All right, cheers.
