Former Westpac boss Brian Hartzer joins Reejig following $6m funding round

The long-time banking executive has a new gig, as chairman of a fast-growing Sydney start-up that just raised $6m for its global expansion.

Fresh from a $6m capital raise led by Kim Jackson’s Skip Capital, workplace intelligence start-up Reejig has lured former Westpac chief executive Brian Hartzer to serve as chairman, bolstering the company’s credentials as it embarks on an aggressive global growth trajectory.

Mr Hartzer, who currently also serves as a senior adviser to Quantium and Sayers Group, said Reejig’s ethical AI platform had the potential to be leader in its field globally, and was something that he would have liked to have access to during his time at Westpac.

Reejig launched in 2019 and uses AI to give management an overview of the skills base within a company’s workforce to clients now including Woolworths, KPMG and John Holland.

“I think Reejig has the potential to create a massive ripple ­effect in the management of ­people around the world,” Mr Hartzer said. “It will help those companies but almost more importantly help all the people that work in those companies have more fulfilling careers and lives.

Reejig co-founder and chief executive Siobhan Savage and Brian Hartzer, who has been appointed chairman of fast growing Australian startup.

“As a leader in business, I’ve always got most of my satisfaction out of seeing the people who work for me do well and seeing them grow, and the ability to use technology to do that at a massive scale is really exciting.”

Reejig last month closed a $6m Series A funding round led by Skip Capital, with participation from Airtree Ventures, Culture Amp’s Didier Elzinga and his opera singer wife Greta Bradman, and existing backer Right Click Capital.

Co-founder and CEO Siobhan Savage said Reejig was now ready for a truly global push, particularly amid what she called “the great Reejig”, which has seen resignation rates soar across the globe amid the pandemic.

“We’ve won a couple of customers in the US and we’re building our team and our leadership over there now,” Ms Savage said. “We want to be a category leader in the world. From a workforce intelligence point of view, we think organisations will be powered by Reejig everywhere. We want zero wasted potential in people, business and society, which is really where our core mission lies.

“The biggest problem for companies now is they need to have visibility of their people, so whether that’s responding to a lockdown or rapid growth, it comes down to having 100 per cent visibility of who your people are, what skills they’ve got, and what potential they have to do another job at the company, whether that’s for a good reason or a bad reason.”

Large corporations like Australia’s big banks have often struggled to innovate at the same clip as small nimble start-ups, and Mr Hartzer said the key to success for Australia’s tech sector would be collaborations between the two.

“Large companies are very alert to the need to innovate now, and it will always be in many cases easier for a start-up that doesn’t have legacy systems,” he said. “A lot of start-ups have viewed big companies as the enemy and competition they’re trying to unseat, but actually there is a lot more opportunity for collaboration, where they can create solutions that actually helps the big company.

“As the start-up world matures I think there’s more recognition on both sides about the ability to collaborate and create new opportunities for small companies but also to help accelerate the objectives of big companies.”