Pete Dakin - bio

Pete loves nothing more than to see people thrive at the intersection of technology, business, and human potential, and is always excited to support others as they tackle the next challenge that drives meaningful change for them.

His entrepreneurial journey began in 1987 when he created and sold his first commercial software, the Life Insurance Sales Accelerator (LISA). It was a miraculous piece of kit, allowing insurance agents to overcome their call reluctance by not just generating leads but also dialling the calls for them.

Even back then, and without realising it at the time, I was on the path of fostering and enabling positive behavioural change through technology.

This early success set the tone for a career defined by innovation and impact. In 1993, he founded Wildcards, a New Zealand-based design and prepress agency, growing it to serve over 2,000 business customers before exiting in 1997 to explore that scary new phenomenon that few had yet heard of: the Internet.

In 1999 Pete was snapped up to assist with the online rollout of the 2000 America's Cup event, and quickly found himself leading digital content management technology efforts for the prestigious event - many years before Wordpress was even conceived of. Pete's America's Cup success led to further opportunities to enable content creators, this time in the UK for the 2001-02 Volvo Ocean Race, where he delivered cutting-edge publishing solutions under challenging conditions: for pop-up journalism offices in far flung ports and even for sailors aboard racing yachts as they raced around the world.

In 2003, he launched Wdot Hosting and Management, a tech, hosting and SEO consultancy, which he successfully exited in 2007. During those years Pete committed to consulting to businesses that needed to adapt to the new age fast. Notable during this time was his work on rebuilding NZ's Apple Store.

The story goes that another company had delivered the NZ Apple Store using a technology created by their mortal enemy, Microsoft. This displeased none other than Steve Jobs himself. I was parachuted in to fix it using open source tech, and got the job done in just 3 weeks.

Since that time Pete has held multiple senior digital technology roles, including several Chief Technology Officer (CTO) positions, in organisations with revenues of up to £120 million. His expertise grew to span diverse industries such as edu-tech, behavioural advertising, recruitment tech, more content management, and coaching tech. One standout chapter was his tenure at Metropolis International in the UK, from 2013 to 2019, where he led an intense five-year digital transformation programme that helped the group to grow from £10 million to over £100 million revenue annually.

During this time, Pete assembled high performing teams, designing and delivering cost-effective enterprise-grade solutions to support countless online publications, and even future acquisitions. He established best-in-class processes for digital advertising, SEO, bulk email, and multimedia production (delivering over 2,000 videos). He personally led the process of technical due diligence during the company’s acquisition of EMAP, Europe’s oldest publishing firm, in 2018. Ultimately the combined efforts from countless great people created an unrivalled, scalable synergy where technology and human effort enabled frictionless growth across more than 30 diverse content verticals. In an industry in global decline Metropolis was the outlier as it defied the downtrend, growing both in size and profitability.

In 2021, having returned to NZ, Pete was ready to return to entrepreneurship. Together with Diane Dakin and with a shared vision to foster growth and development for the greater good, they established Promana People. Today, they're bringing their combined skills and experiences to bear through a digital platform that's uniquely dedicated to enabling and fostering growth for individuals, for small and medium enterprises, and for coaches and like-minded professionals too.

Promana brings out my passion for technology and people development, allowing us to present essential tools, like automated website builders, lead generation systems, bulk email services, booking engines, and finance management solutions — all designed to empower users to achieve their best and scale their businesses. The blend of those essentials with the human touch of coaching, mentoring and training, with access to independent experts from a vast array of disciplines, is what makes Promana unique.