People working with business leaders every day. Turning real-world challenges into practical, measurable progress.
Co-Founder / Director / General Manager
Danielle Hancock is a Chartered International Governance Professional and the General Manager of a business association in North-West Auckland. In this role, she is dedicated to enabling the growth, resilience and the long-term success of local enterprises by building capability, strengthening networks and championing the needs of SMB owners.
Her work with The Better SMB reflects her passion for lifting the performance of small and medium-sized businesses at scale. Having seen first-hand the obstacles SMBs face and the untapped potential within her own membership, Danielle recognises the opportunity for chambers and business associations across New Zealand to leverage the Better SMB model to deliver high-value, evidence-based support.
Danielle believes that applying practical business performance tools, insights and pathways through trusted intermediaries can deliver real, measurable economic impact, improving outcomes for individual business owners while contributing to New Zealand's broader productivity challenge. Her goal is to help create a more capable, confident and competitive SMB sector. One that is empowered to perform better and thrive in both local and global markets.
Co-Founder / Director / Principal Advisor
David brings three decades of experience across technology, advisory and commercial leadership. His MBA research into New Zealand's productivity challenge highlighted a consistent business level issue: performance improvement often stalls not because technology is unavailable, but because leadership, planning and execution disciplines are underdeveloped.
David leads the development of The Better SMB improvement system and performance intelligence offerings along with the partner led go to market model that enables chambers and ecosystem partners to deploy them at scale.
His focus is helping businesses build clarity of direction, operating discipline and accountability so improvement becomes practical, measurable, and repeatable.
Co-Founder / Director / Head of Content
With twenty years' experience in health sector leadership and project delivery, Rob has spent the past decade helping SMBs across New Zealand design and embed practical operational excellence systems. His work focuses on translating real world challenges into tools, insights, and behavioural shifts that lift performance where it matters most -- inside the business.
As Co-Founder and Head of Content at The Better SMB, Rob leads the development of the stories and capability building content that help SMB leaders understand and apply the Better SMB performance system. From shaping the narrative of the podcast and The Last Word column in NZ Manufacturer, his work turns complex ideas into accessible, actionable guidance.
Rob is driven by a long-held belief: New Zealand's productivity challenge won't be solved by theory alone -- it will be solved by equipping business owners with the systems, habits, and leadership capability they need to make measurable progress, week after week. His mission is to help SMBs build the confidence and operational discipline to perform better to compete at a higher level.
