Axenic Limited is a New Zealand owned information security consultancy based in Wellington. It was founded by Jim Shaw and Chris Blunt in April 2009. Both Jim and Chris have extensive experience in the ICT industry and in information security in particular.

We founded Axenic because we felt that there was not enough focus on client’s underlying business requirements and objectives by companies offering information security consulting services. We approach information security as a risk management activity and believe that understanding your business drivers is fundamental to developing solutions that support your objectives. This is in contrast with many companies offering ICT security consulting services that focus on technology driven solutions and selling products. This can result in solutions that deliver security features but do not necessarily meet the client’s needs.

We have deliberately chosen not to sell product, partner with vendors or offer technical implementation services in order to maintain a truly independent consulting and advisory role. We are as clear about what we do not do as we are about what we do.

We use internationally recognised standards, frameworks and methodologies as the foundation of our services in order to provide consistent and repeatable results. This means that our recommendations and advice are traceable to an appropriate source (backed up by our knowledge and experience) rather than being unspecified ‘best practice’ or an unsupported opinion.

Axenic is operated on a day to day basis by its founding directors who are both actively engaged in the delivery of services. We have a team of consultants that are all senior specialists with extensive information security consulting experience in a broad range of disciplines across both the public and private sectors.

So what’s with the name? We get asked this all time! When we founded the company we went through a long list of names trying to find one that we liked, wasn’t already registered, had a domain name available and could be trademarked. We finally came across Axenic in a synonyms dictionary. Pronounced a-zen-ic, it is a biological term meaning pure. The full definition is “an organism free from contaminates….” and we immediately thought this would be a great name for an information security consultancy.