Professional Overview

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Gary Nicholson is the Group Chief Executive of NZ Data, New Zealand's leading
structured cabling and physical infrastructure provider, and Vice-President Asia Pacific for Secure Fiber Ops (SFO). He brings more than 30 years of senior executive and CEO-level experience across technology services, real estate, distribution, and business services — a track record of building, scaling, and leading complex organizations that makes him as effective a commercial strategist as he is a hands-on technical operator.

 

Gary leads the New Zealand and Asia Pacific business for SFO while playing an active and integral role in the technical direction and project support of SFO's US operations. He travels to the United States regularly — meeting with clients, engaging technical teams, and contributing directly to project discussions spanning the US, Asia Pacific, and Europe. His involvement is not advisory in the abstract; Gary is in the room, on the projects, and on the tools when it matters.

 

Over his tenure at NZ Data, Gary has built deep relationships across the global infrastructure industry — with vendors, integrators, technology partners, and operators spanning multiple continents — bringing NZ Data and the wider SFO ecosystem access to expertise and partnership capability that few companies of its size can draw on. Educated at Victoria University of Wellington, Gary is known for building strong cultures, developing high-performing teams, and delivering results in markets that demand both commercial discipline and genuine customer focus.

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Career Journey

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NZ Data: Group Chief Executive (2022–Present)

 

Gary joined NZ Data as Group Chief Executive and Director in April 2022, partnering with founder Eric Thomson to lead New Zealand's foremost structured cabling and digital infrastructure provider through its next growth chapter. NZ Data was founded by Eric Thomson in 2006 — started with just Eric and five installers in Wellington — and grew under Eric's leadership into New Zealand's dominant nationwide structured cabling provider before Eric relocated to the US to found Secure Fiber Ops. Gary's appointment brought structured executive leadership to a business that had already proven its model at scale.

 

Today, NZ Data operates nationwide with over 80 direct staff, more than 200 certified subcontractor partners, and offices in Auckland, Hamilton, Palmerston North, Wellington, Christchurch, and Dunedin. It serves as the preferred infrastructure partner for government departments, enterprise clients, healthcare providers, and logistics organizations across New Zealand; the same client profile and delivery standard that SFO is now building its US reputation on.

 

NZ Data's service portfolio spans the full physical connectivity layer; exactly the capabilities Gary now brings to SFO's Asia Pacific operations and lends in technical support to the US business:

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• Data Center Infrastructure: turn-key design, build, and commissioning of data centers, server rooms, and telecommunications closets. Partnerships with industry-leading data center vendors including rack, UPS, power, and cooling solutions.

• Fiber Infrastructure: tailored fiber solutions for enterprise campus and data center environments. Expert design and implementation across OM4 multimode and OS2 single-mode fiber types, for any environment now and into the future.

• Structured Cabling: high-density Cat 6A copper and fiber cabling solutions for single and multi-site enterprise environments, designed for future-proof performance and backed by a 25-year installation guarantee.

• Managed Services: OPEX-based infrastructure management including layer one environments, UPS systems, and full Build | Operate | Transfer service models.

• Wireless, Security, AV, and Digital Transformation: a complete digital connectivity and environmental infrastructure group serving healthcare, government, and commercial environments.

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Prior to NZ Data, Gary built his executive career across three decades of CEO and Group Managing Director roles in New Zealand business — spanning technology services, retail, distribution, and real estate. That breadth of commercial experience — running large, multi-site operations, managing national teams, and navigating complex stakeholder environments; is what he brings to NZ Data and to SFO every day.

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Secure Fiber Ops: Vice-President, Asia Pacific (2024–Present)

 

As Vice-President Asia Pacific for Secure Fiber Ops, Gary leads SFO's presence and business development across the Asia Pacific region while serving as a key technical resource for the wider SFO business globally. His role bridges geographies: he is the senior SFO leader in the Pacific, the primary point of engagement for APAC clients and projects, and a hands-on contributor to technical projects in the US and Europe.

 

Gary travels to the US regularly — meeting directly with clients, developers, and project teams, engaging in technical project discussions, and ensuring that the knowledge, standards, and delivery discipline built at NZ Data are fully available to SFO's US operations. These visits are working engagements, not executive check-ins. Gary arrives with technical depth and leaves with actions.

 

The NZ Data business Gary leads is more than a parallel operation — it is an active technical resource for SFO USA. NZ Data's engineering teams, project management frameworks, vendor partnerships, and hard-won delivery knowledge are all available to SFO as it independently builds its US business. That means SFO does not have to build every capability from scratch: it can draw on a proven infrastructure business with nearly two decades of track record while its US team grows and its US reputation is established.

 

This relationship — an established, high-performing New Zealand business actively supporting a scaling US operation — is one of SFO's most meaningful structural advantages. It accelerates credibility, deepens technical capability, and provides a backstop of operational expertise that a startup-phase business would not otherwise have access to.

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Global Industry Relationships

 

One of the most valuable things Gary brings to NZ Data and SFO is the depth and reach of his relationships across the global IT infrastructure industry. Over his tenure leading NZ Data, Gary has cultivated strong ties with some of the world's leading infrastructure delivery organizations — firms with operations spanning more than 40 countries, hundreds of engineers, thousands of completed projects, and delivery capability across data centers, enterprise, hyperscale, and smart building environments.

These are not directory-listing relationships. They are built on mutual respect, shared delivery standards, and a track record of working together. When Gary picks up the phone to a global partner, the conversation starts from trust — and that is a meaningful advantage in a market where trust and track record are everything. It gives SFO a direct line into world-class infrastructure practice, vendor ecosystems, and operational knowhow that would take years to build independently.

Gary's global network spans the US, Europe, Asia Pacific, and the United Kingdom, and he is actively engaged in technical and commercial conversations across all of these regions on behalf of NZ Data and SFO. Whether the project is in Wellington, Washington, or across the wider Pacific, Gary brings the same standard to every engagement: the full-lifecycle infrastructure philosophy — expert design, seamless installation, and tailored ongoing support — that NZ Data has applied to the New Zealand market for nearly two decades.

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Leadership Approach

 

Gary's leadership philosophy has been forged across three decades of running complex businesses: clear strategy, strong culture, and relentless focus on delivering for the customer. He builds teams as purposefully as he drives commercial outcomes, and his career across multiple industries reflects an executive whose fundamentals are sound regardless of the sector or the geography.

At NZ Data, that means holding the highest standards for engineering quality, project delivery, and client service — the same standards that have made the business New Zealand's leading structured cabling provider and the trusted partner of choice for government, enterprise, healthcare, and commercial clients nationwide. At SFO, it means bringing that same discipline to a new market, backing Eric Thomson and Mara Ervin with technical depth, global relationships, and a proven operational model.

Gary's leadership of NZ Data — the business from which Eric Thomson drew his infrastructure expertise and delivery discipline — provides the operational proof of concept that underpins SFO's credibility with US clients. The track record Gary stewards at NZ Data, the relationships he maintains globally, and the technical support he and his team provide to SFO USA are all part of the same commitment: to build something the right way, and to make sure it lasts.

Gary's standard is consistent with Eric's and Mara's: only the best will do.