About RIVER

The most important work of the decade.

Our vision has been the same for fifteen years: A world where technology empowers people. AI is the biggest test of this yet.

The record

AI is new. Getting it to work takes experience.

15+

years digital innovation

1,000+

projects delivered

100%

project delivery rate

3.5M+

annual user sessions

100+

unique AI workflows

80K+

largest knowledge base

Proud to be 100% NZ built, Māori and Pacific owned, enterprise proven.

Senior Team

Experienced team. Built for enterprise delivery.

Strategy, technology, design, engineering and research - with over 150 years of combined experience. Every project has a senior sponsor, so you work directly with the experts.

Isaac Rolfe

Managing Director

AI Strategy & Agentic Architecture
Te Aupōuri, Te Whakatōhea

20+ years shipping high-impact projects across New Zealand and Australia. Built RIVER's enterprise AI platform and designed the agentic architecture behind it.

Rainui Teihotua

Chief Creative Officer

Design & User Experience

20+ years designing products people actually use. Turns complex workflows into interfaces teams pick up without a training manual.

John Li

Chief Technology Officer

Platform & AI Infrastructure

20+ years in software engineering and platform architecture. His philosophy: build it properly, make sure it never goes down, keep it sovereign.

Tim Hatherley-Greene

Chief Operating Officer

AI Adoption & Enterprise Transformation

20+ years turning complex challenges into working systems, from Canterbury's earthquake recovery to enterprise AI adoption. Makes sure the right things get built, and that people actually use them.

Kevin Fuavao

Chief AI Officer

Client Workflows & AI Automation

15+ years across engineering and operations, from running his own business to the New Zealand Defence Force. Owns RIVER's AI direction, and builds each automation from how the work actually runs.

Dr Tania Wolfgramm

Chief Research Officer

Applied Research & Evaluation
Te Aupōuri, Te Whakatōhea, Ngāi Takoto, Ngāi Tai

30 years bridging Indigenous knowledge systems and technology. Presented at Google and Stanford, and authored Waitangi Tribunal research.

Hassan Nawaz

Senior Developer

Full-Stack & API Engineering

15+ years across full-stack development, API integrations and platform architecture. Builds whatever the stack demands, and makes sure it works in production.

Louise Epa

AI Analyst & Research Consultant

Pacific Health Data & AI Research
So'oalo (Samauga, Savai'i)

15+ years spanning Pacific health systems, data analysis and AI research. Co-built Samoa's national M&E framework and mapped NZ public-sector AI adoption.

Action Research Team

PhD-led. For the problems engineering alone won’t close.

Led by Dr Tania Wolfgramm, they join select projects to validate the models and design the evaluation. They are why we can say “measurable” and show the measurement.

Dr Vincent Russell

Machine Learning (AI) Engineer

Te Aupōuri, Te Whakatōhea

PhD mathematician and ML engineer. Understands AI at the mathematical foundations: not just how to use it, but why it works and when it will not.

Dr Gerson Tuazon

AI Strategy & Health Innovation

20+ years across academia, banking, research and AI. His PhD research on perspective-taking informs how RIVER reads the human side of adoption: why teams take up new tools, and why they resist.

Dr Josiah Koh

Education & AI Innovation

20+ years across government, higher education, ERP and AI. His SAP, AI and education stack means he reads an organisation's workflows as well as its learning design.

What we believe

We build AI that empowers people, not replaces them.

People are our greatest asset, so we design projects around them.

People

Ngākau Tangata

People are our greatest asset. We put them at the heart of every project.

Perseverance

Ngākau-roa

Challenges define us. We push, we reflect, we pivot, and we stay until it works.

Integrity

Ngākau Tapatahi

Integrity guides every decision. We tell you the truth, and say no when something doesn't fit.

Insight

Ngākau-nui

We are curious and challenge assumptions. We solve the right problem before solving it right.

Our vision has not changed for a decade - a world where technology empowers people - and we have turned down work designed to specifically replace a team. In the age of AI, this is more important than ever.

Our Story

We started as a studio. We stayed for the hard part.

Fifteen years ago Isaac and Rainui started a small studio, on the thing they turned out to be best at: building technology that works for the people using it. By 2018 the projects had outgrown it, and we became RIVER.

When ChatGPT launched at the end of 2022 we made the call within a month, and spent two years on the problems nobody had solved yet: hallucinations, security, cost, integration. We rebuilt our stack around the answers.

Today we build the AI platforms ambitious organisations actually run on, and we get their teams using AI properly. The repositioning was deliberate. The delivery record is the part that did not change.

Nau mai haere mai, ko tā mātou he ringa whāngai.

Our vision is a world where technology empowers people. With AI changing what that looks like on a regular basis, this is too important to get wrong.

Isaac RolfeFounder

Technology can do great things, but we have seen many projects fail because they did not look after the user.

We treat people as the hero of our projects. This is where we stand apart.

Rainui TeihotuaCo-founder

Why we win

We deliver, or we work for free.

We take the risk. You take the leap. Every RIVER engagement carries a guarantee, and these are the answers people ask us for before they say yes.

The norm

Working with RIVER

Another failed pilot

A 100% project delivery rate, across 1,000+ projects.

Building it wrong

Specialists succeed at roughly twice the rate of going alone.

About 67% against about 33%. MIT Project NANDA, via Fortune.

Slow and costly

Live in weeks, not months.

Paying for activity

Measurement built in from day one.

Losing control, lock-in

You own your data, your workflows, and your IP. Always.

Hosted in Aotearoa, deployable on your terms. Independence from day one.

Talkers, not doers

We build, not just consult, and we run the same tech we sell.

Market figures carry their source every time. The delivery record is what we have done; any return we project is a target we scope with you and measure together.

Client stories

Teams like yours, in their own words.

A decade of work, across health, sport, finance and the public good.

RIVER learnt our business inside out, and found growth we hadn't seen ourselves. That is what changed our ability to scale.

Jay HarrisonFounder, Edison Health · 2022

We crunch through complex data to generate insights, and RIVER made it simple to work through, while keeping everyone aligned on our core value proposition.

Alex OsbornCTO, trev · 2024

Our business runs on what RIVER built. They have been central to our technology and our growth, and it keeps driving results.

Mark BramwellDirector, Commercial Realty · 2024

RIVER listens, understands what we actually need, and gives us our time back. That is what a good partnership looks like.

Tony NaiduDevelopment Manager, Auckland Badminton Association · 2025

RIVER helped us validate our market and launch our platform, and they haven't stopped since. They've been with us every step.

Mike CollinsFounder, iMatch Sport · 2025

RIVER has been a trusted partner from the start, and they exceeded what we expected. We're already seeing the difference their work is making.

Ellen LekkaProgramme Specialist, UNESCO & SVSG · 2025

The team at RIVER has been an incredible partner from day one. Their ongoing support helped make our success possible.

Scott TownshendFounder, trev · 2022

RIVER approached every detail with care. Every decision was made with consideration and purpose.

Daemon CoyleGM, Mental Health Foundation · 2021

Our new brand is bold and effective, and customers love it. The website has driven a real increase in leads.

Marcus SinGM, Cleanly · 2020

We have always been ambitious about what our site should do, and RIVER take on the hardest parts of it. They make it happen, no matter how complex.

Chris HartFounder, Real Groovy · 2021

RIVER are responsive and always ready to adapt. We have never had to chase them, and their support has been critical as our needs changed.

Supriya Kulkarni-PadhyeM&E Coordinator, Oceania Football Confederation · 2020

We love our new brand. It reflects who we are as a team and resonates with our customers. Thank you for bringing our vision to life.

Tracy BergeGM, Greentree Advisers · 2021