The Morgo Podcast

Hosted by Morgo

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Episodes

100

Latest episode

Jun 2026

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About the show

The Morgo podcasts are 20-minute interviews with people building tech companies from New Zealand and Australia into the world. Look for The MORGO Podcast on your favourite podcast app and subscribe.

Listen to episodes

60 recent

June 8, 2026Episode 16421 min

Yoram Benit, Tait Communications

Tait Communications is a provider of critical communications for public safety, emergency services utilities & enterprises. Yoram became CEO in 2021 and has grown the company from 450 people to over 1300. Plans include a new state of the art manufacturing facility & a Centre of Excellence with over 10 labs. Yoram says the key to the growth is having a strong business case for every R&D project or acquisition and making sure you have the right people. www.taitcommunications.com

May 11, 2026Episode 16334 min

Ratu Mataira, OpenStar Technologies

OpenStar is nuclear fusion company. In this podcast Ratu talks about the pathway of building the business: the science, the people, the funding. The core technology is a levitated dipole containing a plasma at temperatures of millions of degrees, which OpenStar demonstrated recently. Now OpenStar plans larger machines and temperatures of millions of degrees to make medical isotopes and electricity. This requires a team of very smart and very driven people. www.openstar.tech

April 13, 2026Episode 16222 min

Sigurd Magnusson, Silverstripe

Silverstripe partners with governments and enterprises to create the digital infrastructure that underpins everyday life in Aotearoa and beyond. Sigurd shares its journey from small startup to a mature company of 70 people whose open-source CMS powers over 200 NZ government websites. Their work is aiding digital transformation internationally too, as in South Africa where they delivered a single digital front door to government services in just 10 weeks. www.silverstripe.com

March 23, 2026Episode 16118 min

Quentin Griffiths, Lutra

Lutra's purpose is to protect the environment and the people within in through excellence in management of water and wastewater. Its team are engineers, modelers, data management specialists, content producers, and project managers and its clients are in New Zealand, Australia and other countries. Quentin talks about coming into the CEO role – learning to shift quickly across different areas and the importance of purpose and focus. www.lutra.com

March 2, 2026Episode 16023 min

Hamish Findlay, Aspeq

Aspeq is in the business of providing secure exams and assessments for regulators. It started in the aviation sector: assessing pilots and aircraft engineers in New Zealand. Now it is in 25 countries with test centres, software to book & run exams and a secure browser that allows access only to agreed resources. Aspeq now has 50 people and many more contractors. Hamish talks about his role in expanding the business with clients in all time zones and a long sales cycle. www.aspeq.com

February 11, 2026Episode 15919 min

Jo Haanstra, Atomic.io

Atomic.io delivers secure, in-app messaging that helps companies reach customers where engagement is highest, inside their web and mobile apps. By replacing fragmented channels like SMS, calls, and email, Atomic.io enables more trusted, timely, and seamless customer experiences. Jo is driven by scaling category-defining companies and leads Atomic.io in transforming how enterprises connect with customers in the moments that matter most. www.atomic.io

January 12, 2026Episode 15822 min

Kendra Ross, Sydekick

Sydekick provides cyber security for small business. Phishing emails and voice calls have become more sophisticated and everyone needs to be protected. Phil Howie, CTO, started the company. Kendra was an early investor. Then she and Phil agreed to build the company together with Kendra becoming CEO. They work through partnerships with service providers in New Zealand, Australia & the UK. Kendra talks about lessons learned in this business and in a previous one she built. www.sydekick.co

December 15, 2025Episode 15715 min

Lisa McDonald, Recollect

Lisa is the CEO of Recollect, a cloud-based platform for managing and accessing archives. With some large customers in New Zealand and Australia, Recollect is now focused on expansion in the US and Canada. Lisa says she's been surprised by how much the customers appreciate the customer service Recollect offers. And she talks about the continuing need to focus to get the most out of the resources they have and the need to have a trusted circle of advisors. www.recollectcms.com

November 24, 2025Episode 15623 min

Bridgit Hawkins, Humble Bee Bio

The Humble Bee Bio journey began with rare bees, whose genomes it sequenced to uncover novel molecules, including one with a rare and potent property — elastin stimulation. This molecule will soon be available as a hero ingredient for formulation of anti-ageing products. Bridgit is not the founder, she joined to build the business. She says the skills of leading a company are transferable but you need to learn about a new sector and build a network for it. www.humblebee.co.nz

November 3, 2025Episode 15520 min

Will Hewitt, Heartlab

Heartlab provides a cloud-based cardiology imaging system that helps cardiologists review and report on scans of the heart. Will talks about how they started using AI to improve the reading of ECGs but discovered that the real issue wasn't better diagnosis, it was access to the images at any time on any platform. Heartlab has customers in Australia, NZ, the US and Canada. Will enjoys learning what issues the customers have and building product to solve them. www.heartlab.com