Passive Fire NZ Announces Key Leadership Transition as Joe Pope Steps into GM Role and Awen Guttenbeil Becomes Managing Director

Eight years ago, Passive Fire NZ began with founder Awen Guttenbeil’s vision to bring a new level of transparency and certainty to passive fire protection in NZ. Since then, we’ve built a tight-knit crew who go above & beyond every day. Today, we’re announcing some milestone changes within our team.

Joe Pope, our Operations Manager, is stepping into the newly created role of General Manager. While our founder and CEO, Awen Guttenbeil, moves into a Managing Director seat. 

These changes aren’t just titles – they’re a reflection of how far we’ve come, the level of trust we have built amongst our team and we reckon they’re a reason to celebrate. 

We’re celebrating:

1. Our hard earned growth… We’ve been through some wild times – especially in the last few years but we’ve focused on sticking together, backing ourselves and putting people at the heart of it all. Always. 
2. Building the dream team… From day one, Awen knew that a team-first mentality would set us apart. Now, it’s just how we roll. We’re coaches, we’re players and we’re each other’s biggest fans. So, we’re all cheering for Joe. Joe’s been with us since 2020, smashing it as operations manager.. You can find out more about Joe on our site (link in bio and we’ll be sharing more about Joe’s journey over the next few weeks)
3. Awen’s next move…With Joe taking the captaincy, Awen is shifting gears. As Managing Director, he’ll step sideways on daily ops and put his energy into long-term strategy and team development. We’ve got some exciting projects and game changing tech underway…

Big moves, big plays and still more to come… 

At the end of the day, it’s about people. And, our people are the best! He tāngata, he tāngata, he tāngata. Massive props to everyone at Passive Fire NZ, you each play a key role, and you do it bloody well. This next chapter is gonna be epic. So let’s go!