NZ loyalty platform Plexure loses MD Craig Herbison, Qantas Loyalty's Kathryn Byrne to lead strategy

Image credit : Plexure

Craig Herbison - MD of Plexure for the last 4 years - resigned last week.

Plexure is New Zealand's only domestically founded and listed loyalty enterprise.

Plexure was founded in 2010 (and previously known as VoucherMob) in New Zealand. In 2013 McDonald's took a 10% stake in Plexure and now uses Plexure globally in 60 countries (except in the USA). "We estimate that NZ$30m has been invested into the platform since inception" - analysts Ord Minnett.

McDonald's are a 10% Plexure shareholder and also buying into other loyalty and customer experience differentiators including Dynamic Yield which personalizes drive through experiences and Apprente for conversational agents that can automate voice-based ordering in multiple languages.

In the USA McDonald's is rumoured to have partnered with MasterCard owned loyalty platform SessionM for their recently released loyalty program.

Key Plexure clients include:

• McDonald's globally in 60 markets (except USA).

• Flybuys New Zealand

• Pita Pit New Zealand (singed in June 2021)

• Super Indo Indonesia (grocery)
  

Herbison's departure after 4 years follows CFO Andrew Dalziel's exit earlier this year after 5 years with Plexure.

Kathryn Byrne, who was until July the head of Strategy at Qantas Frequent Flyer, is the new Chief Strategy Officer at Plexure.