Envato is building out its New Zealand presence

Melbourne tech company Envato’s global ambitions are continuing under new CEO Hichame Assi with a New Zealand base being established.

The online marketplace business now has 17 staff working remotely across Aotearoa, amid plans to up Envato’s global headcount to more than 100 staff over the next 12 months.

Hichame Assi said the company expects to double its New Zealand-based team by the end of the year.

“We’ve hired almost 20 people in the last six months, and we expect to double that by the end of this year at the very least. We’ve been super impressed by the quality of the talent in New Zealand so far and we can’t wait to connect with more people
in the local tech community in the coming months,” he said.

“The people who have worked with us that hail from NZ – both historically here in Melbourne and more recently in the country itself – have helped elevate our business to what it is today. We’ve never been better than now at being connected and working globally, so from a talent, cultural and proximity fit, it makes sense to explore growing our team in NZ as we continue to scale up our international business.”

The recruitment drives comes as co-founders Collis and Cyan Ta’eed relocated to Darwin to focus on their philanthropic work with Indigenous communities.

Collis announced 12 months ago that he’d step down as CEO after 14 years in the role, with Hichame, the former HotelsCombined.com boss stepping into the wheelhouse last October

Hichame said the Kiwi jobs range from SEO and email marketing to customer support, engineering and infrastructure architecture and he’s open-minded as to who else signs on.

“Our initial recruitment has uncovered some exceptionally strong engineering talent we’re looking forward to growing this further,” he said

“At the moment we’re remaining flexible and hiring all across the country, and we’re definitely keen to make use of the established flexible working hubs across the country to ensure our teams get together regularly for a closer connection.”

The CEO said they’d managed to squeeze in their  first NZ staff meet up before the country joined NSW and Melbourne back in lockdown after the first case of the Delta strain emerged in Auckland in mid-August.

The company has been thinking about its remote work roadmap amid constantly changing restrictions.

“While Envato has always had quite a few people operating in a globally remote capacity, we’re now seeing a more momentous shift across the board that will require us all to be a bit more flexible in our working style,” Assi said.

“Our global team of nearly 600 have adapted well to these changes so far, and we expect to continue to refine our approach to globally flexible work as the year rolls on.”

Envato’s current jobs list is available here.