About us
Rush Flat Consulting is based in Wellington, New Zealand, and is run by Brian and Carol Speirs.
Brian Speirs
Brian Speirs was Chief Economist for Meat & Wool Innovation Economic Service (now part of Beef & Lamb New Zealand) for 15 years. During that time, Brian was responsible for the timely provision of forecasts of agricultural production levels and farm incomes. The position required a wide knowledge of the agricultural sector and its interactions with the rest of the economy, coupled with the ability to communicate key facts to the media and other interested parties.
Brian also spent two years at the NZ Institute of Economic Research where he undertook project work for numerous government and private sector organisations. This included cost-benefit analysis, industry input-output analysis, a review of government housing schemes, and an analysis of organisational structures for the delivery of traffic enforcement services.
Two examples of Brian's work can be found at:
Most recently (2008 to 2012), Brian has been employed by CACI as a Software Engineer in their Twickenham (London) office. Brian worked on their OfficeBase ERP and scheduling software.
This work drew on Brian's interest and experience in multi-value databases. This interest led Brian to write two books on how to use the OpenQM database. These are described in greater detail on, and can be downloaded from, the Multi-Value page.
Carol Speirs
Carol Speirs has been active in both the Human Resources and Project Management areas.
Carol's recent work has been as an HR Manager for EDF Energy in the UK, and prior to this with Meridian Energy in New Zealand. In both these roles, Carol was responsible for all staff training undertaken by the companies. This included Executive Development programmes, recruitment of new graduates/apprentices and developing their on-going training programmes, and involvement in the Corporate University programme.
Carol has been trained in the use of Meyers-Briggs personality profiling at Heriot Watt University in London, and is a member of the British Psychological Society.
Prior to this, Carol worked for the NZ Dairy Board and Fonterra as a project manager. She was responsible for software rollouts amongst Fonterra's global offices. As part of this process, Carol was responsible for a large amount of training of staff in the new software.
Carol is a member of the Project Management Institute (PMI), and has the PMI qualification of Project Management Professional. She has been active in PMI at local, national, and international levels, including setting of exam questions in both Australasia and the UK.
