Rangiora

Jason Stapley

A Chartered Accountant since 2009, Jason has experience in a Big 4 accounting firm, a large Australian privately held property group, and before joining Sidekick in 2018 was the Financial Controller for Mike Greer Homes.

Alongside his experience in the property sector, Jason enjoys helping clients achieve success in the construction industry and meeting people who have an entrepreneurial mindset.

Jason enjoys spending time with his young family on his lifestyle property in Mandeville, playing social football, and watching most sports, especially cricket on the telly!

Jayne

Jayne joined the Sidekick Rangiora in November 2019 as the Client Service Manager. Originally from the UK, she used to run her own successful delivery company, which has given her a great basis to understand, guide and provide the necessary assistance to help build successful businesses for our clients.

Jayne also brings a wealth of administration qualities that she’s gained from working in the Medical, Recruitment and Healthcare sectors and she has a real passion for providing assistance to others.

Jayne lives local to the office with her husband and daughter and most importantly the office dog Marley. She loves going to the movies, shopping and travelling around the amazing sites that New Zealand has to offer.

Lauren Sawtell 

A Chartered Accountant since 2014, Lauren has experience in large and medium sized accounting firms, and was Financial Controller for a Body Corporate Management firm before joining Sidekick.

Lauren enjoys spending time with her daughter and her family, going for walks and enjoying nature. She has a passion for all things Japan, especially cooking, and she enjoys travelling there where she can.

Lauren enjoys working with local businesses and helping them grow.

Katie Moratti

Katie joined the Sidekick team after completing her Bachelor of Commerce at University of Canterbury in 2021, with a Major in Accounting and a Minor in Human Resources.

Katie’s prior business experience includes working in Administration, Customer Service and Supply Chain Management so she has a good understanding of day-to-day business activities.

Katie is a local having lived in Rangiora for most of her life. She enjoys getting involved in her local community and coaching her son’s rugby team. Katie also holds a position on the Board of the Saracens Rugby Football Club.

Katie looks forward to working with local businesses and helping them on their journey to success.

Ric Thorpe

Ric Thorpe is one of the owners of Sidekick Chartered Accountancy Group. Ric is one of the leads in the 20-strong Christchurch team, as well as assisting the Sidekick group across the South Island, which now has offices in six locations and over 50 team members (with an additional 15+ overseas). Ric has been instrumental in fostering the incredible family-like team culture at Sidekick and helping grow the business by spreading the word of Fixed-Fee, Modern Accountancy across the country. Ric has also held roles in governance and strategy for not-for-profit organisations, membership organisations such as the Christchurch Business Club, as well as within the Sidekick Group.

Traditionally, Ric has been at the front end of Sidekick as the sales expert, building referral networks and solution partners across many industries. Since 2020, Ric has been predominantly Christchurch-based (which can largely be attributed to the Covid-19 situation). Now, as CEO, Ric’s role is consulting to small and medium businesses, working with clients to help them grow and driving the growth of Sidekick across the country with new office locations and recruitment!

A key thing for Ric is culture. If you have the right people and they all have a common purpose along with respect and love for one another, your business should thrive!

Julie Copland

Whilst also being a Chartered Accountant, Julie has a passion for projects and improving business processes. Julie works across the Sidekick Group to find better and smarter ways to work.

After attending Lincoln University, Julie was in the New Zealand Airforce where she was a Logistics Officer, organising the deployment of both staff and equipment within New Zealand and around the world. She then moved home to Canterbury to pursue Accounting and has since had roles in a Chartered Accounting firm in Ashburton, as a Management Accountant for Ravensdown, and then more lately Midlands Apiaries.

Outside of work Julie loves playing squash and netball, travelling, and spending time with her husband Dan and son Thomas.

Victoria Hay

Victoria is a digital marketing guru, her most recent position was with Harrison Bloy as their Digital Marketing Manager. She has a Bachelor of Design specialising in multimedia. She has recently returned from a 5 month break where she hiked the full Te Araroa trail (3,000 kms from Cape Reinga to Bluff), a pretty amazing feat! Other than tramping Victoria is also a keen runner and horse rider. Victoria will be based in the Christchurch office and possibly a bit from home & Selwyn too.

Helen Pauley

Helen is a Marlburian who has travelled the world and landed back here. Having a varied work life from managing a regional office for a multi-national advertising firm, owning a hospitality business to practice management of a medical practice, Helen brings a bucket load of skills. Communication is her flag ship skill and she enjoys problem solving. Resourceful and fun, pretty much sums her up.

She is married to Gary, who is a Business Advisor and in their spare time they love to travel to family & friends, experience the great outdoors and discovering new recipes and flavours, accompanied by a glass of fine wine.