Brendan Kelly - A Biography

Brendan has a passion for everything ‘sales’ and jumps at any opportunity to sit in on a sales presentation with a consultant and be at the coal face.

Brendan has a passion for everything ‘sales’! He has a diverse background – starting his career in retail banking with the Bank of New Zealand (BNZ) before moving to the New Zealand Dairy Board (now Fonterra) as Regional Manager of Lower North Island Shipping. After four years with the Dairy Board, he moved to the Owens Group as North Island Regional Manager before moving into a management position with Telecom just when mobile phones were entering the New Zealand market.

In 1996 he purchased his first business, The Opera Restaurant and Bar in Wellington. During the following six years Brendan and his wife Marie developed The Opera into an iconic Wellington hospitality business. Brendan’s passion for live entertainment had a huge influence on how the business developed over the following years with The Opera becoming recognised as the place for quality live entertainment. The music ranged from jazz, rock, opera to comedy, the latter reflecting Brendan’s great sense of humour. Among its many accolades The Opera was recognised with the Newsweek International prestigious ‘Best Bar’ award, the only such award to be made in Australia & New Zealand for 1997.

In 2001, the business was sold and Brendan returned to the technology industry by joining Tech Pacific / Ingram Micro as a Business Development Manager before becoming Sales & Marketing Manager for the Enterprise Division.

Brendan joined the Zeald.com team in 2005 as Sales Manager and was responsible for revenue generation through the E-Business Consulting network.  With increasing demand for Zeald.com product and services the need to focus on expanding the Consulting team became apparent so Brendan moved exclusively into the Licensing Director role in late 2007.  He is now responsible for growing the network of Consultants in New Zealand, Australia and further afield.

Brendan is married to Marie, a Banking Executive and they are enjoying the move to living on the Shore where the house is ruled by two Burman cats. Brendan loves his V8 Holden and has a huge range of music interests including opera music and classic rock bands like AC/DC and the Rolling Stones. Brendan has extensively traveled throughout Asia, Australian and New Zealand.

Both Brendan and Marie have a strong interest in New Zealand art, a passion they actively pursue as time and budget permits. Brendan also has an enthusiastic appreciation for a fine bottle of wine – he is determined to gain access to Ron and Vaughan’s wine cellars and sample some of delights hiding down there.

(As an interesting side note - Brendan is not directly related to David Kelly - although nobody has ruled out that the family genes may have crossed sometime way back in the annuals of time!)