About the
NEXTGEN Group

FRESH PERSPECTIVE

The NEXTGEN Group provides independent, value-add services to the technology marketplace. We specialise in a carefully curated and complementary portfolio of best-of-breed enterprise software and cloud solutions. We believe in a culture of integrity, diversity and accountability, and we’re proud to have created a better, smarter business model to accelerate growth and share improved outcomes and experiences for everyone in our ecosystem of vendors, channel partners, and end-customers.

Our business is a hub of collaboration within the channel that makes it easy for technology partners to do business with international vendors on complex and ever-changing product suites. Our unique and award-winning combination of specialist knowledge, innovative technology platforms and complementary services enables our partners and vendors to stay relevant and remain ahead in this dynamic IT environment.

Company Timeline

Our journey starts in 2011, here are some key milestones along the way charting new initiatives and company growth.

2011

NEXTGEN Distribution Australia founded after Oracle asked Group CEO John Walters to set up a new local Australian distributor.

2013

NEXTGEN Distribution New Zealand established following opportunities to expand the business across the Tasman Sea.

2014

NEXTGEN Group companies OPTIMA, CREATE, and CONNECT established.

2015

Inaugural Summer Party held.
ORACLE Cloud Centre of Excellence established.

2016

NEXTGEN Distribution Australia regional Victorian (VIC) office opens.

2017

NEXTGEN Group acquires Bang - a leading brand, digital, creative agency.
ORBUS Capital established.
NEXTGEN Group head office relocates to North Sydney.

2018

NEXTGEN Distribution Australia regional Western Australia (WA) office opens.

2019

Inaugural Leadership Forum held.
Inaugural Wise Forum held.
ORACLE Cloud Centre of Excellence changes name to STRATUS.

2020

NEXTGEN Distribution Asia established.
Singapore office becomes new Asia headquarters.

Leadership

The NEXTGEN Group Leadership Team is a group of diverse and talented individuals with a pioneering spirit. Each lead from the front, sharing their expertise and vision.

John Walters

Group Chief Executive Officer / NEXTGEN Group

John Walters founded NEXTGEN Distribution in 2011 along with Steve Murphy, and has rapidly expanded the NEXTGEN Group through relationships, trust and integrity. His experience in the IT industry spans more than 20 years in executive roles for IT distributors, while also consulting to IT vendors, distributors and resellers around growth, business transformation and customer-centric strategies.

Dominic Calandra

Group Chief Financial Officer / NEXTGEN Group

Dominic is a strong finance leader with a passion for people and the future, formerly a Director of Finance and Legal for NTT Com ICT. His ability to design and drive an organisation’s strategic direction through operational transformation has delivered repeated strong growth in enterprise value.

Cameron Avery

Group Chief Marketing Officer / NEXTGEN Group

As CEO and founder of Elastic Digital, Cameron bootstrapped his company to be a market leader in channel marketing automation for a client base that includes some of the world’s largest B2B IT companies, Juniper, NetApp, Symantec and Atlassian to name a few. He produced these results by developing and leading a highly engaged team who support the delivery of world-class services through Zift, the leading channel platform.

James Cunial

Group Chief Technology Officer / NEXTGEN Group

James began working in the IT industry in 2009 before joining NEXTGEN Distribution in 2011 near its inception. As NEXTGEN Group CTO, James is responsible for the technical strategy and capability of the NEXTGEN Group, ensuring the business is innovative, relevant, differentiated, and providing an exceptional customer experience – both for partners and vendors.

James Walters

Director of Digital Sales / NEXTGEN Group

James has worked in IT since 2007, providing clients with personal, investment and corporate advisory services at Kaz Capital. He later brought his passion for finance, technology, and commercial realities into the NEXTGEN Group, managing the company’s relationships with its exciting next generation vendors and more recently leading the oSpace business.

Gavin Lawless

Group Chief Operating Officer And Managing Director / NEXTGEN Distribution Australia

Joining NEXTGEN Distribution in 2018, Gavin Lawless brings 25 years IT industry experience to his role as Managing Director of the Australian operation, including senior roles in Distribution, Vendor and Consulting firms, leading sales teams in channel sales, direct product sales, consulting sales as well as mergers and acquisitions.

Lynne Jeffery

Managing Director / NEXTGEN Distribution New Zealand

Before joining the NEXTGEN Group, Lynne worked with NEC as Head of Public Safety Solutions leading the growth of NEC’s biometric business in New Zealand. Prior to NEC, Lynne was a Sales Director at Wynyard Group, responsible for financial crime and cyber threat detection products.

Wendy O'Keeffe

Executive Vice-President and Managing Director / NEXTGEN Distribution Asia

Wendy is a technology and distribution veteran, having worked with Ingram Micro precursor Tech Pacific, then spending 15 years with Westcon Group before joining Tech Data (formerly Avnet). She has deep leadership experience in the Asia Pacific region’s technology sector having spent many years operating in multiple countries.

Kelvin Huang

Managing Director, Singapore

Kelvin comes to NEXTGEN having worked for the past four years in the vendor community, most recently as the APAC Channel Director for Silver Peak which was recently acquired by HPE. Kelvin will be responsible for establishing and growing the NEXTGEN partner business and working closely with vendors and partners to execute on our commitments, as well as building and managing a first class team.

Board of Directors

Helping guide the business with independent governance, the NEXGEN Group Board of Directors features several highly experienced and successful practitioners from the technology and finance sectors.

Andrew Petering

Chairman

Andrew brings a wealth of experience to the NEXTGEN Group as a non-executive director of private companies experiencing rapid growth. Andrew spent the first 25 years of his career in Investment Banking and Private Equity. For the last five years Andrew has been CEO of Nexus Hospitals, a national group of surgical hospitals which he helped to establish in 2013.