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When Luke Irving, founder and managing director of Fingermark Digital Technologies decided it was time to move his business out of Auckland, he put Hawke’s Bay on his shortlist. And after undertaking due diligence and discovering how welcoming and easy it is to do business in and from this region, he’s now working out of Havelock North.

Fingermark designs, builds, and integrates custom touchscreen and digital signage solutions - a complete solution including hardware, software, and servicing. Its customers are located all around the world.  Now when Luke touches down in Auckland from doing business overseas he feels huge relief that he’s got an hour’s flight to Hawke’s Bay and not an hour-plus drive home through grid-locked traffic.

Which is significant as Luke is in Sydney every week at present, working on a project with his team there, and regularly flies to USA and Brazil to other Fingermark offices. And then there’s trips to visit global customers.

Part of Luke’s due diligence saw him contact Business Hawke’s Bay and he says the response was “brilliant”. BHB’s Catherine Rusby put him in touch with several business owners including Future Product Group, who operate successful global businesses from the region so he could ask the hard questions of those with first-hand experience.

“It was amazing. So refreshing and relaxed. People have been so welcoming and genuinely interested in helping us do what we’re doing,” Luke says. “We’re finding our feet, it’s very early days but I already feel there’s a network of support here.”

Catherine also linked Luke with NZTE and Napier Port, while the team from NOW proved invaluable in getting high speed fibre set up in Fingermark’s Havelock North office. “What would take eight months in Auckland took 36 hours in Hawke’s Bay. It’s phenomenal.” Unison too had proved “fantastic and so easy” to deal with, Luke says.

Luke has been joined in Havelock North by six of his Auckland team, and all are loving now living in “such a beautiful area where people are so friendly”, says Luke.  Fingermark employs 16 people globally and the plan is that more will eventually be based in Hawke’s Bay.

Fingermark was established 11 years ago, and has been exporting for the past six. “We moved to Auckland to set up but knew that as soon as we could, we would move out to somewhere that offered a better lifestyle but of course, without compromising the business,” explains Luke.

Now Luke, partner Emma and their two pre-schoolers are thriving here, and the Fingermark business has not broken its stride to growth and success.