Dave Heatley's informal CV
Dave Heatley's informal CV
I like mountains, nature, tech (especially digital tech), public policy, & economics – and pursue them all energetically!
CVs tend to be dry and boring. They don’t have to be. Here’s an example.
My background
I’m a New Zealander (my father was born in Wellington from South Island stock) — and an Australian (my mother was born on a farm in country NSW). I grew up in Tasmania, and have worked in various places including Melbourne and the UK. I’ve called Wellington home since 2005.
Backing the wrong fruit
I studied computers in the 1970s and completed a B.Sc. in 1980. (That was well before geeks became fashionable.) As computer science graduates were in short supply, it led to great opportunities. At age 21 I was leading the software design team for a new personal computer in the UK. Unfortunately, history tells that I backed the wrong fruit – the Apricot.
Mixing conservation and tech start-ups
Over the following decade I bounced between conservation advocacy (e.g., being a park ranger, and a lobbyist and media spokesperson for the somewhat anarchic NGO the Wilderness Society) and the tech industry (including writing database software for Hewlett-Packard).
In the early 1990s I tried to combine them in Verdant – a software company embodying social and environmental principles. (Today it would be called a social enterprise, but the term didn’t exist back then.) While its first incarnation was a commercial failure, it led to the very successful tech start-up Echoview software. I wrote its original software for analysing underwater acoustic data, then led the team that made it the globally leading package for fish stock assessment and research – supporting responsible fisheries management in the world’s oceans, rivers and lakes.
Second time not so lucky
In the early 2000s I tried to repeat the underwater success on land. With venture-capital backing, I helped create an ambitious new software product for the visualisation and analysis of time-varying geospatial data. The product – Eonfusion – was ahead of its time, or at least its commercial success was beyond our resources and capabilities. And the global financial crisis didn’t help. But it did teach me that I needed better business management skills.
Back to school
It was time to start learning from others’ mistakes, not just my own. I enrolled in an MBA at Victoria University of Wellington … and inadvertently discovered a love for economics and public policy. Time for a career change! After my degree I became a research fellow at the Institute for the Study of Competition and Regulation, researching NZ railways, telecoms, electricity markets, and other fascinating stuff.
Ten years at the Productivity Commission
Hearing that NZ was about to get a Productivity Commission modelled on its Australian namesake, I thought that should be the next place for me. I joined in April 2011 – its first week in operation – and immediately started on my first of what turned out to be 8 inquiries: International freight transport services, Strengthening trans-Tasman economic relations, Boosting services sector productivity, More effective social services, New models of tertiary education, State sector productivity, Technological change & the future of work, and Growing the digital economy & maximising opportunities for SMEs. I found social services the most rewarding; the tech ones stood out too.
The PC developed a reputation for well-researched, thorough analysis, but expressed in somewhat long and dense reports. While doing my best to use Plain English when writing on complex and technical topics, I wanted our work to reach other audiences. I initiated and contributed to 2 PC blogs – FutureworkNZ and PandemicEconomics.
The PC was short on inquiry topics during the 2020 national lockdown. I ended up working on Covid policy, including a cost–benefit analysis (CBA) for Treasury to demonstrate how CBA could be applied to Covid lockdown decisions.
My other “careers”
Work at the PC could get full-on, leaving less time than I liked for my other interests. I took a 16-month break in 2017–18, mostly spent adventuring in Fiordland. In 2021 I left the PC, looking for a better balance with my other “careers”. These include volunteering on conservation projects and for search & rescue, exploring the mountains on ski and foot, and the odd trail ultra-marathon.
I also volunteer as the editor of Asymmetric Information, the newsletter of the NZ Association of Economists (NZAE), and sit on the NZAE Council.
In between those career adventures, I created Sawtooth Economics in 2021.
Why Sawtooth Economics?
NZ mountain ranges often look like the sharp edge of a saw. Indeed, NZ has two Sawtooth Ridges, one in Westland on the South Island and another in the Ruahines on the North Island. Sawtooth reflects my love of the mountains, and it embodies the idea of “cut-through” on complex, contentious and difficult topics.
Sawtooth can assist with your projects — simple or complex. For more information, or just to chat, email dave@sawtootheconomics.com or phone +64 273 545 672.