Kirk Cheesman is the Group Managing Director of NCI and started in 1990 as an Office Trainee. Throughout Kirk’s time at NCI the company has grown to over 180 employees and 4,000 clients throughout Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and Malaysia.

Kirk shows strength in identifying and finding appropriate solutions to mitigate trade credit risks. This has been applied to SME’s as well as large multi-national domestic and international companies. He is a cornerstone of NCI’s success, with his enthusiasm to develop new ideas to protect our clients from trade credit risks.

He believes in building a strong culture within NCI, which leads to making close business friendships with clients and partners.

James Thornberry was appointed Managing Director of NCI in Australia following a 25 year career in banking, where he held senior positions at CBA, Deutsche Bank and Nab. Prior to joining NCI he was an Executive Director at CBA where he led a national team providing Trade & Working Capital solutions across a diversified customer base.

Throughout his career James has worked closely with businesses of all types and sizes, both domestically and internationally, from SME to large corporates and multinationals. He is passionate about enabling trade and mitigating risk and sees NCI playing an important role in helping more businesses protect their profits, enhance their liquidity, grow their sales, and navigate into new markets.

Outside of work James enjoys spending time with his wife and two teenage kids, and is a lover of sports and the great outdoors.

Craig Rowe, as the Executive Manager – Finance, heads up NCI’s Finance Team. With nearly 3 decades in finance and accounting, he has a wealth of experience in both public practice and commerce including international and Big 4 roles.

In addition to his responsibility for NCI’s compliance and reporting requirements, he and his team play an instrumental role in providing value-added support to management and other stakeholders within the group.

Craig enjoys the challenges of working for an innovative, market-leading business that is continually striving to stay ahead of the curve.  Above all else, he enjoys being part of a team and working towards collective goals.

Prudence Chang has been at NCI since 2006. Starting off as a Sales Executive, moving to Senior Sales Executive, Sales Manager, National Business Development Manager and now Executive Manager – Business Development and Partners. She not only oversees the strategic planning and National Partnerships for the sales teams but also negotiates policies.

She has won numerous awards including 12 NCI achievement awards, Insurance Business Magazine Elite Broker award 7 times and most recently was awarded a top position in Elite Woman in Insurance Broker 2021.

Prudence has the experience to negotiate the most competitive policy, no matter if it is for an SME or a large multinational.

She is energetic and passionate in all walks of her professional life.

Jeff George commenced with NCI in 1991 and is Head of Risk and Group Services. This includes overseeing The Hub service divisions – Claims, Limits, Credit Services and Collections – and Risk and Compliance throughout NCI.

With such knowledge and experience, Jeff is very much the “go-to” person for clients and throughout NCI for technical matters. His strong knowledge of insurer policy wordings and of NCI’s product offerings is invaluable in tailoring solutions to not only protect clients, but to enable them to grow.

His motto is for clients to “survive and thrive” – now and into the future.

Lisa is the General Manager of Operations at NCI, starting her career in 2003. Throughout this time, she has held a variety of different roles, giving her a broad understanding of what it takes to keep the NCI wheels moving.

In addition to overseeing NCI’s operations, Lisa specialises in the management of large projects, data and process analysis and creating efficiencies across all of NCI’s operational aspects.

Her passion for creating opportunities for others to achieve their professional goals and the development of new products and services is paramount in her role.

Most recently, Lisa was responsible for the successful rollout of NCI’s NextGen project which included recreating our client platform, NCILink. Lisa continues to work closely with NCI’s IT team to bring more automation and ease through technical solutions to NCI’s clients.

Darren Maxfield is an Account Director who has worked in client-service at NCI for over 20 years. He has managed clients ranging from regional SMEs to global enterprises and his responsibilities now include management of NCI’s key accounts, as well as general service standards and model.

Darren has developed great experience and skill working in local and overseas markets, and trusted relationships with insurers and other service providers. He focuses on understanding and communicating client needs to ensure the best solutions and outcomes.

Darren appreciates the urgency and critical nature of issues and strives to exceed expectations in resolving them.

Sam Turtle is the General Manager – NSW/ACT for NCI. Starting with NCI in 2011, he progressed through multiple departments in South Australia before moving to Sydney in 2014. This variety of roles has given Sam a great understanding of the industry, allowing him to consistently deliver for our clients.

NCI’s presence in both NSW & ACT have reached new heights under Sam’s leadership. This has been achieved through a focus on providing exceptional client service and raising awareness of innovative trade credit solutions available for businesses, ultimately to mitigate their credit risks and maximise growth opportunities.

Melissa Tapper is the General Manager for NCI VIC / TAS. Melissa started her career in Credit Insurance in 2009 with NCI. She then spent three years in London working as an insurer in the Lloyds market before returning to NCI in 2015.

Melissa won the Service Person of the Year award in 2020 and 2021. With a client-focused approach, Melissa collaborates closely with the VIC / TAS service and sales teams to ensure excellent customer service and a tailored product offering. Her extensive experience and leadership skills have consistently elevated her teams’ performance, making her a trusted leader in the industry.

Maria Tisdell is the General Manager for NCI QLD. She has over 20 years’ experience in the Credit Industry. Maria has worked in various roles in her tenure at NCI.

Her passion is to build a strong culture within her NCI team, offering opportunity to grow and achieve personal and professional goals. Maria’s customer focus approach with clients provides the highest service levels, delivering market leading insurance outcomes for their businesses.

Roger Armatys is General Manager – South Australia for NCI and began this role in 2018. Roger started developing his trade credit specialty skills with NCI in 2000 and enhanced these through a six year tenure in the London Markets between 2012-2018.

Creating, partnering and exploring trade solutions to improve risk management processes or improving working capital for businesses of all sizes from Global Corporates down to SME’s is his core strength.

His success is built from the strong client relationships held and to attention to detail to support partnerships with programs which are compliant and “fit for purpose’

Since 1998 Dan has been working in the Trade Credit Insurance industry. Over that time, he has held various consultancy and senior management roles.

Having also held a variety of underwriting roles in London, he knows both the broking and underwriting aspects of trade credit insurance, making him perfectly placed to tackle even the hardest of trade credit challenges.

Dan places his focus on the client and prides himself in his ability to identify areas that will add value to their business. Being able to negotiate with underwriters at the highest level has shown that he can deliver promising results.

Since relocating to Australia, Dan has developed many strategic relationships throughout WA, with both clients and business partners.

Ronnie Lau is CEO of NCI Brokers (Asia) Pte Ltd.

His expertise in Credit Management has enabled him to drive strategic initiatives that protect businesses against financial risks and ensure sustainable growth.

Ronnie’s leadership is marked by a commitment to excellence, customer-centric solutions, and a deep understanding of the credit landscape in Singapore.

Zara Mends is the Managing Director of NCI New Zealand. Zara has over 16 years’ experience in the industry and has worked in Australia and New Zealand in Broking and Leadership roles.

She has an in-depth understanding of trade credit risk and experience in tailoring solutions for businesses to ensure they are protected, maximising the cover available and ensuring they are well informed about their debtors and market risks.

Mark Lathwell is the Executive Manager – Banking & Finance. Mark has been working with NCI since 2014 and brings over 25 years of experience in the financial services industry.

Mark will now drive the NCI strategy that ultimately benefits its banking & finance partners and their clients nationally.