The Non-Agency Model

About Us

We don’t have pool tables, fancy-pants boardrooms or flash signs on our building. We don’t even have a real full-time physical office. We are a remote-first business, meaning our team work from home offices across New Zealand and the Philippines. We prefer online meetings, rather than clogging up the roads with more cars, which is much better for the environment. We also think that to be good at looking after New Zealand and Australian businesses, we have to be down-to-earth and relatable to real people.

Why?

Our remote-first model keeps us nimble, reduces costs and provides a better lifestyle balance for our team. Plus, by using the best digital technology and AI tools to communicate and collaborate, we can walk the talk, consistent with our core aim of ensuring our clients achieve greater business productivity and flow. And remote working is better for the planet, reducing office and travel costs!

The irony is that when this is combined with smart time-tracking software, which shows us what the staff member is seeing and doing on their screen, people working from home can be vastly more productive. You actually know when your remote staff are working and what they are doing. We know they are not watching cat videos on Facebook or participating in a Zoom cat behaviour session during chargeable work time. 

Yet, aside from this one productivity hack, our culture is not about control. It's about a culture of putting family first. Working when you want to work, making work fun and being driven by a purpose aligned with our strategy and yours. 

Unboxed History

It was July 2013 when our Founder, Rob Robertson, walked past an empty cereal box in his apartment, waiting for inspiration to strike for the name of his company. After a second look at this cereal box, the Unboxed name was born.

Next up was designing a logo; the branding agency suggested Unboxed Performance, which he liked. In November 2013, the Unboxed Performance website went live, with a vision to shift business cultures and the way technology is used. Driven to make work fun while also gaining new levels of productivity, to open the boxes, or silos, of isolated data and people, and to enable collaboration and innovation to flourish.

Fast forward 10 years, and Unboxed Performance underwent a brand refresh in 2023, becoming the Unboxed Operating System and launching a new website. Our mission remains the same: to change how people feel about technology and work. We strive to help individuals leave work feeling productive, fulfilled, and genuinely looking forward to the next day.

This mission is deeply personal to Rob, as it stems from his background working for multiple business owners who treated their team poorly. One example was when Rob was the Australian Sales Manager of a large international franchise-based business. The unnamed Australian franchise owner would yell at and bully the executive team, being abusive to all his staff; he thought this would drive higher performance.

Back then, Rob carried a lot of self-doubt, and while he appeared confident on the outside, being berated at work left him feeling drained and disheartened. These experiences fuel his mission to change work culture by supporting and nurturing people, combined with the right AI and tech tools to automate the boring bits so the team feels supported and valued at work.

Rob’s passion for technology dates back to his school days when he learnt how to write software on his home computer. In 1998, he built his first website after graduating from Lincoln University in New Zealand in 1998 with a degree in computer science. On a mission to grow people, Rob is trained as a  Zenergy Facilitator and, in 2002, completed his Results Intensive Coach Training; he is a Qualified workplace assessor (NZQA US4098), holds a Cert IV in Learning and Development, completed another Accelerated Coaching Certification in 2025, and has been a business mentor since 2001. 

This is the Unboxed journey: a team passionate about technology and putting people first, supported by the best technology to foster a high-productivity, fun culture, to empower the business owner and their team to have a more fun and rewarding existence.

To read more, please visit our Team Profiles