Sam founded Pro-Dev in 2015 after nearly a decade as a design engineer at one of the world’s leading juvenile product companies. He holds a Master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from Auckland University of Technology.

What makes Sam genuinely rare in this industry is the combination of technical depth and commercial instinct. He can sit with an engineer and work through the details of a tolerance specification or a tooling decision, and then walk into a boardroom and explain what that means for budget, timeline, and market strategy. That ability to move fluently between the engineering world and the business world is what makes Pro-Dev work. It is also what makes clients trust him with their ideas.

Over more than a decade building Pro-Dev, Sam has developed deep relationships across the Chinese manufacturing industry that took years to earn and cannot be shortcut. He knows the factories, the people, and the supply chains. He has been on the floors, negotiated the contracts, and managed the relationships through good projects and difficult ones. When Pro-Dev says it has a team and a network in China, that is not a marketing line. It is the result of Sam spending years building something real.

He founded Pro-Dev because he believed there was a better way to take a product from idea to market. Over ten years and clients across New Zealand, Australia, and the United States, he has been proving it.

Andrew has been an integral part of the Pro-Dev team from the beginning, bringing 25 years of experience across disciplines that most designers keep separate. Trade certification, toolmaking, film and production work, industrial design, engineering. That breadth is not accidental. It is what makes him exceptionally good at product problems that do not fit neatly into one category.

Over his career Andrew has designed award-winning products across a wide range of industries, secured patents for novel inventions, and guided products from rough concept all the way through prototyping, CAD, and into production. His toolmaking background combined with deep knowledge of manufacturing processes means he understands exactly what happens after a design leaves the studio. He does not design things that look good on screen and fall apart in manufacturing. He designs things that work.

Wilson has been in engineering for over 45 years, starting his career at a large textile machinery manufacturer in Northern Ireland before earning his engineering certifications and moving to New Zealand. He built his career through quality assurance and into production management across the manufacturing sector, accumulating a depth of real-world experience that cannot be replicated in a classroom or a consultancy report.

He has been part of Pro-Dev since the very beginning. His specialisation in design for manufacture and quality control is one of the quiet reasons Pro-Dev’s products perform the way they do. Wilson thinks in manufacturing constraints instinctively. When a design lands on his desk, he already knows what will and will not work on the factory floor, and he will tell you directly.

Mark is an industrial designer with a strong visual mind, exceptional sketching ability, and a deep understanding of manufacturing and graphic design that means everything he creates is grounded in how it will actually be made and how it will actually look in the real world. Thirty years of experience across a wide range of industries and product types gives him a breadth that few designers can match.

He designs things that look right and work right. At Pro-Dev, that is exactly the standard we hold ourselves to.

Mary is often the first person you will speak to at Pro-Dev. She handles every enquiry with care and makes sure the right conversation happens quickly. In a business built on trust, how you treat people from the very first contact matters. Mary understands that better than most.

Taylor is part of the Pro-Dev China team, and what that means in practice is that our clients have someone with 15 years of manufacturing experience physically present at the factories producing their products.

He manages factory relationships, production oversight, supply chain coordination, and quality control across Pro-Dev’s China manufacturing network. His engineering background, fluency in both Mandarin and English, and deep familiarity with Chinese manufacturing processes make him the bridge between Pro-Dev’s design and engineering work in Wellington and the factories that bring it to life. When a production issue arises, Taylor is already there. That is the difference between a consultancy that emails factories and one that actually manages them.

William has over 20 years of manufacturing experience in China across a wide range of production methods and processes. He brings deep practical knowledge of how products are made and what it takes to keep quality where it needs to be on the factory floor. His resourcefulness and hands-on approach make him a dependable part of the Pro-Dev China team.

Chloe is part of the Pro-Dev China team. She is embedded in our supply chain on the ground, working closely with suppliers to keep quality, timelines, and communication exactly where they need to be.

In manufacturing, supplier relationships are not just logistics. They are the difference between a smooth production run and an expensive problem. Chloe knows the suppliers, understands how they work, and knows how to get the best out of them on behalf of our clients.