Our Team
Founder and Chief Executive Officer
Pete Mazany
PhD. (Yale), MCom (Hons.) BSc (Auckland)
Pete Mazany is passionate about how education can allow people to achieve their full potential. He is the founder and CEO of the parent company, SymComm Limited, a company that provides an environment for authors to create and publish business simulations and for teachers, instructors and trainers to use with their students and participants. Simulation can dramatically accelerate business learning and improve the learning process for business students.
Pete has worked with organisations in the United States and New Zealand to develop competitive strategies, team-orientated cultures and the necessary supporting management systems, particularly with SMEs. He studied at the University of Auckland, completed his PhD. in Management Science at Yale University, and worked for the Boston Consulting Group. He was consultant to Team New Zealand, the successful America’s Cup challenger in 1995, and helped design management systems to support teamwork, accountability and communications. He continued in this role for America’s Cup 2003.
He has worked for and contracted to the University of Auckland Business School to develop and teach simulation-based business courses. He is the recipient of several teaching awards including Best Teacher in the MBA and an Outstanding Teacher Award at the University of Auckland.
Lead Programmer
Csanad Novak
Csanad Novak is our main developer and has wide experience in a variety of software and computer-related areas. He has worked on and managed large and complex intranet and internet portal projects, and designed and planned the fundamental part of the network for a wi-fi based-internet company when it started its operations. He is a specialist in Linux based components and has programmed web portals in PHP and MySQL. He is also a specialist in web security applications.
He managed the leading sci-fi fantasy publisher in Hungary, wrote 3 bestsellers, and translated several novels from English to Hungarian. He developed the first fantasy role-playing game in Hungary.
Finance, Operations and Administration
BeeChoo Tee
BeeChoo Tee holds a Graduate Diploma in Business (Operations Management) from the University of Auckland. She has worked as Administration Manager for a clothing retailer, Operations Manager for an office consumables retailer and also had her own cost consultancy.
BeeChoo has worked on creating online courses for the University of Auckland Business School and the Marketing Department. She is an independent contractor to SymComm and has been responsible for managing the finance, accounting and operations functions of the business since 2003.
Peter Sumich
Peter Sumich is responsible for the business direction and development. He works with customers, networks, partners and funding providers as well as provided strong financial and project management to the team. Professionally he is a Chartered Accountant that is academically qualified with a Masters in Commerce and has commenced his PhD.
Peter is currently Finance & Planning Manager of the Faculty of Design and Creative Technologies at AUT University and a contractor for the NZICA and its PAS programme.
See Wong
See Wong has spent 8 years with SmartSims and SymComm building earlier versions of this software. He is currently a software designer with the ASB Bank as well as working for SymComm. See has a Masters in Computer Science at the University of Auckland and has commenced his PhD.
Robert Wang is the senior author studying at University of Auckland. He is doing Bachelor of Commerce & Bachelor of Science conjoint degree majoring in Finance, Economics, Applied Mathematics and Statistics.
Sim Authors are developing our simulations. These are high performing and advanced undergraduate students from the University of Auckland Business and Engineering Schools who are paid as contractors.
Sales and Marketing contractors. These are students from AUT who have used our simulations, and are selling to secondary schools. SymComm may also contract professional Marketing and PR firms where necessary.