Q&A with Alin Ungureanu – Chief Executive Officer

Alin Ungureanu: Enabling businesses and people to grow, collaborate and succeed

Alin's passion for technology, strategy and leadership has seen him work with businesses like Iogen, KPMG, Icebreaker and Oceania Healthcare throughout his 20-year career. From biotechnology, manufacturing, finance, retail, healthcare and professional services, to government bodies on special project work – his industry experience covers both technical and strategic roles. He's also got an MBA under his belt and a Master of Health Informatics, and Master of Computer and Information Sciences underway!

Now he's leading our business through an exciting chapter of growth and development – appointed CEO in August last year. He's also served as a Director on our Board since 2016.

We chat to Alin about his career and his plans for Chelmer's future.

Q) You've worked in a wide variety of industries, tell us about some of the roles you've had? 

My background is in information systems and technology, but I'm also passionate about leadership, so I've been able to apply my skills quite broadly. I've worked in both technical and strategic roles, including senior management, executive, advisory and governance positions. Some of them have been secondments, where I'd go in to develop and implement a solution to help the organisation transform and grow. Continual learning is a passion of mine – so I'm always looking to gain new insights and experiences.

Q) What are some of the most exciting projects you've worked on? 

While working for biotechnology company Iogen in Canada, I developed the technology strategy and implemented various systems to help the organisation grow, support R&D and deliver products to their clients. 

Another interesting project was a secondment via the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment to develop the solution architecture and implement infrastructure technology and hosting for the New Zealand Emissions Trading Register that manages our climate change response activities.

I also developed the technical solution for Icebreaker’s Baacode initiative – a world first traceability system that lets customers to track their merino wool garments through every step of the production process (start to finish). The best projects are ones where the outcome enhances or simplifies user experience.

Q) What sparked your interest in Chelmer? 

Developing technology-based solutions that enable better, more successful businesses and teams is what I'm passionate about. Being able to apply this to financial services is why I wanted to be part of Chelmer – to have the opportunity to enhance lives by making wealth creation easier through our technology.

Q) What is your focus for Chelmer as CEO?

Continue to build and support our brilliant, inspiring team and embed a culture of innovation, collaboration and value-focused delivery across our operations. Also, continue developing the trusted partnerships we have with our clients – engaging in their growth and becoming an enabler of their success through collaboration and co-creation. By working together we hope to improve lives and help more people acquire, maintain and grow their wealth.

Q) What's in store for Chelmer's future?

It's an exciting time for Chelmer. The business has gone from strength-to-strength and put us in an exciting position to grow and share our technology with the world. In February this year, we opened our first international office in the Philippines and so we're looking to continue expanding our reach into Asia, now with local access to testing and development capacity to complement our core Auckland team. 

We are also investing in our people, processes and tools to improve our quality assurance processes, automation testing and release management, as well as ongoing investment in our R&D pipeline. Here, we're hoping to work more closely and collaboratively with our clients, where we can integrate with their teams, develop mutual objectives, gather their inputs and co-create components and solutions tailored to their needs.

Q) What are your thoughts on robots / AI taking over the world?

Scary thoughts! Is it likely to happen? Maybe...but we probably won’t realise it. There are so many algorithms making decisions in our life already, so the question is, who is controlling those algorithms? The scariest thought I have on AI is: If we get to a point where we trust AI to save a life, will we trust it to take a life – or will it still be our decision?

Find out more about Alin or connect on LinkedIn.

To learn more about Myriad – Chelmer's flexible, customisable-component software for wealth management visit our Solutions page.