GTB’s Directors

Mark Ternent MNZM, B Bus, Dip Mgt

Managing Director

With his leadership, management and business development background, Mark keeps the GTB business and team moving forward. Starting as Sarah’s business coach in 2003, Mark was impressed with the vision for the company, and became a shareholder and director in 2008.

Mark enjoyed a high-flying career as a Naval officer, building and leading high performing teams, re-organising several functional areas including due to the introduction or improvement of IT, successfully conducting several significant projects and becoming known as someone who got things done. For these and other results he was promoted to a senior rank at an early age, and spent his last three years as Commander and the Director of Naval Logistics.

His responsibilities and achievements in this role involved being: the head of a branch of 450 people; the youngest member of the Navy’s first Strategic Planning Team; a designated Champion for Business Excellence organisation-wide; and the sponsor of a SAP deployment involving massive workflow and culture change.

Success continued in his move to being a self-employed business coach. He worked with over 40 SMEs in a wide variety of industries, and was a consistent top performer in the Action International franchise with one of the highest rates of client retention. In voluntary work, he has been a National Assessor with the NZ Business Excellence Foundation, and recently stepped down as the Chair of the Kapiti Chamber of Commerce Inc, having led a tripling of the membership and substantial increase in the presence and influence of the organisation.

Until recently, Mark was Chair and an Assessor, and Chief Assessor, for Business Kapiti Horowhenua Inc. which organises the annual Kapiti Horowhenua business awards, and Business Halls of Fame. He was made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit in the New Year’s Honours List 1998, for achievements whilst he was the NZ Purchasing Manager for Europe, based from London. While GTB is his main focus today, he still consults in strategy, change and leadership and other projects which interest him.

He maintains an active role in his business community. Mark believes excellent and ethical business is a critical part of New Zealand’s future prosperity, and a vital part of a healthy community. He believes the rapid advance of IT offers tangible and value-adding options to businesses and these will help NZ to be competitive on the global stage.

Sarah McMurray, BSc

Founder and Technical Director

With a science degree majoring in pure maths, plus chunks of law and education dangling off the side, I started in the IT industry as a mainframe systems engineer. After “retiring” to be a Mum (so much more challenging than “real” jobs), I founded GTB in 1999.

The intention of GTB from the beginning has been to bring the good bits of corporate quality IT, without unnecessary corporate overheads, into the reach of local businesses and social enterprises.

Today, though GTB has expanded beyond these areas, the essence of the original vision has been retained, and I’m strongly committed to GTB core values quality work and care for people.

My strengths include “knowing lots of random stuff”, “clarifying and simplifying”, “synthesising ideas and concepts”. Also, luckily since starting the business, “courage”.

I believe any investment, including IT, must make a tangible difference for the investor. Information technology is here to make all our lives more prosperous, healthy and happy.