Our team
Meet the caring and knowledgeable team behind Heart Saver.
Mike Mander
Managing Director
Mike is an AED specialist with extensive emergency service background – he’s been a volunteer with the NZ Fire Service for a whopping 22 years. He is EMT qualified and NZRC Certified to Level 2. If you’ve been taught first aid by Mike, you won’t forget it in a hurry – he is passionate about teaching practical skills to enable people to confidently and competently provide assistance in emergency situations.
Helen Mander
Director
Helen is an associate chartered accountant by trade and has over fifteen years’ experience in the corporate environment. At Heart Saver, Helen’s key role is overseeing customer services and administration, making sure everything is organised and runs smoothly. Her whiteboards are a sight to be seen… Helen is friendly and compassionate, and enthusiastic about helping Heart Saver customers.
Karl Berghan
National Relationship Manager
Karl’s background includes eighteen years of paid and voluntary service with St John across a range of different departments including Event Medical Coverage. Karl is EMT trained and has also worked within the retail and customer services fields. We’re delighted to have Karl in our team – he truly enjoys helping others learn and understand first aid, which is why his class feedback is always so glowing!
Cushla Howe
Sales Consultant
Cushla has a background in reception, administration, telemarketing, insurance and was a Community Support Worker, caring for the disabled for 3 years. Cushla is Heart Saver’s knowledge queen – she knows all of our products and services back to front, to better help her promote and sell them to our fabulous customers. Cushla prides herself on providing the best customer service and support possible.
Shannon Smyth
Administration & Customer Service
After 10 years in the finance industry, Shannon went on to spend another decade in various sales roles within Auckland before becoming a stay-at-home mum for five years. We’re pleased to have her fabulous admin and customer service skills at Heart Saver, where she helps us in the office with ensuring our customer service is top notch and generally keeping the boys in line!
Sam Brown
Training instructor
Sam has been a post-grad paramedic for 6 years and she spent the past 3 years specialising in remote and expedition medicine as she combined her passion for travel with her vocation of helping others. She’s Pre Hospital Trauma Life Support (PHTLS) certified and her vast experience of working, volunteering and teaching all over the world makes her a huge asset to our business. Sam is one of our superstar first aid trainers, plus she’s working hard behind the scenes on creating and developing new courses to make them fun and relevant.
Jo Marsh
Administration
After 10 years of marketing roles in the manic world of media, Jo took a step back to spend more time with her two little girls. She’s now in charge of scheduling in all our AED verification visits and first aid training courses – and is very good at keeping our team in line! Jo has a passion for customer experience and gets a real kick when she exceeds customers’ expectations. She loves working for a company that gives back to the community.
Debbie Harrison
Marketing Manager
After more than a decade of working in media as a writer and editor, Debbie left the industry to help businesses like ours communicate better with customers. She’s our Heart Saver wordsmith, in charge of all our communications, including newsletters, social media strategy, blogs and PR. She’s extremely passionate about our Become a Heart Saver campaign and rates the day we spent filming with Paul Ego as a life highlight.
Cam Harrison
Graphic Designer & Website Developer
We call on Cam for anything brand related – he’s given all our marketing flyers a fresh new look and built (and continues to manage) our fantastic website. He even gave our ambulance an extreme makeover! Cam’s come from a background in print, marketing, website design and customer service, which makes him super helpful to have as part of our team.
