L>R Leigh Flounders, Emma Southward, Mitchell Pham

The global talent platform Remotexec, founded in Dubai, has appointed Emma Southward as its new chief executive – from across the world in New Zealand.

A month into the role, Auckland-based Southward will help steer the 14-month old company as it facilitates talent acquisition in an age of digital and remote working, matching professional expert consulting with companies that need short-term and one-off support. Services Remotexec delivers to businesses include tech set-up, FinTech, web operations, digital transformation, building risk profile, setting up Agile systems, business planning and financial compliance.

Remotexec appears symptomatic of worldwide business trends whereby the ‘gig economy’ means many companies are investing less in offering employment, benefits and pensions, and relying more on outsourcing.

Southward told theBit that Remotexec services are for businesses who “Don’t need the whole pizza, just a slice.”

“With traditional investment [in giving an expert an employment contract], the smallest investment you can make otherwise might set you back $20,000-30,000 per month to hire a contractor. We’re helping people who might need micro-moments of consulting and not to hire someone full time.”

Remotexec’s founders are Kiwis Leigh Flounders and Daniel Kavali with Mahmoud Abdawi who is from Lebanon.

Most notable on the board of directors is Vietnamese-Kiwi Mitchell Pham, a tech advisor to NZ’s government and co-founder of CodeHQ (formerly Augen Software Group.)

Remotexec is split between hemispheres because its founders launched during 2020’s COVID crisis – when they were working in the United Arab Emirates.  

“The founders built the platform on the back of the world going into lockdown. They were working for a big bank in Emirates and finding it hard to access talent outside of normal processes.”

Thinking about the world’s incoming needs, and the needs of women working in tech is Southward’s passion. Southward is a member of Tech Women, a mentor for AUT’s Women in Tech, and her MBA researched gender diversity in NZ business leadership.

“At Remotexec I can’t say I’ll mostly try focus on women, it doesn’t really work like that – but the more gender diversity we see out there, the more accessible and normal and okay it is for anyone to get involved in their passion without systemic inhibitions.”