MORGO 2026 Queenstown: Disruption and Disruptors
MORGO is an opportunity for leaders of techcompanies to come together to share their experiences. It’s an annualre-charge. You could simply look around the room at MORGO in Queenstown thisyear and know that you were in for a good two days of conversation. Then thespeakers liven it up with plenty to talk about!
Why US companies go faster
Ryan Everton, who writes on Substack as theIntuitive Founder got us off to a great start talking about how fast he wasable to build his business TURN in the US with a key partnership with LiveNation. His slightly provocative heading was “Why American companies growfaster – and it’s not capital”. A great challenge to throw to the roomful ofCEOs.
SaaS companies responding to AI
Next up was Phil Thomson of Auror, theretail crime Intelligence platform built for retailers and law enforcement.Nobody could accuse Phil of building slowly – the company now has over 300people and major customers in the US. He was followed by James Sampson ofFileInvite, a document collection platform for commercial and complex lending.
Then Anne Fulton and Jo Mills of Fuel50, askills intelligence platform and AI-driven talent marketplace, talked about howthey have responded rapidly to AI, using it across the business. They sharedinteresting perspectives on this: how to re-design entry level jobs to buildjudgement, and the skills that AI can’t match such as judgement and empathy.
Grant and Merryn Straker of STRAKER andSlicify couldn’t talk much about the listed company STRAKER because it’s in atrading halt while they sort out an employee issue in the US. Grant pointed outthat STRAKER has always used AI and there is still a place for human judgementin translation. Their big response to AI is developing a new company, Slicify,to build AI agents for others.
Rounding out the group of five SaaScompanies was Matt Gerrie talking about how Serko has redeveloped its businesstravel platform using AI. And then Serge van Dam brought it all together in apanel discussion with the five SaaS companies who’d presented.
It’s not all SaaS
In a busy first day, we also managed to fitin Clinton Cardozo of OneReg talking about the success they’re having with their platformfor aviation compliance for airports and airlines. A nice line from Clint:“People trust New Zealand. It’s the new Switzerland.”
And John Robson of BioOra talked aboutcommercialising CAR-T cell therapy out of the Malaghan Institute in Wellington.With clinical trials underway and a scalable manufacturing platform, they’reworking to bring life-saving cell therapies to more patients in New Zealand andaround the world.
Offshore speakers to raise our sights
Day 2 kicked off with Pascal Millaire, akiwi who lives in San Francisco talking about the experience of buildingCyberCube there – the amount of money available, the intensity of the process,the speed of growth. And Jonathan Rubinsztein who was CEO of listed Australiancompany Nuix talked about lessons from leading a fast growing large company.
Medical instruments, tracking ships atsea and Games!
Alex Black talked about thewell-established Dunedin company AD Instruments which sells software andhardware for medical education and research around the world. Trent Fulchertalked about tracking every vessel on the ocean. And finally Mario Wynandstalked about 30 years building the Games industry in New Zealand across all thechanges in platforms over time.
The Morgo Workshop – Your Problem is MyProblem
And we managed to fit in a workshop led bythe extraordinary Dr Alia Bojilova, who runs the Morgo Leadership Programs.Last year our workshop looked at preparedness for external shocks. This year wewent for disruption from inside the company. Everyone submitted a challengethey were facing inside their company, AI sorted them into groups, and eachgroup took on solving a problem for others.
Bouquets
Every year at MORGO we give out a fewbouquets. This year we gave bouquets to Phil from Auror and to Anne & Jofrom Fuel50 for building large businesses, to Mario from PikPok for reallybeing a cornerstone of the New Zealand games industry, and a belated one toVaughan Ferguson for building Vend.
And finally, off for a walk …
