Dr John G J van der Burg

CA Business Valuation specialist, Entrepreneur, Researcher, and education facilitator.

Pegasus, Canterbury, New Zealand

About

After an international career in the Financial Services sector and ICT industry, including senior positions at board level, I pursued a career in academia. From 2013 to 2023 I was employed as a FT tenured Senior Lecturer Finance at Nelson Marlborough Institute of Technology, teaching a variety of finance, accounting, and statistics papers. A broad expertise in financial management, notably in CFO roles with a strong emphasis on company re-structuring and M&A transactions, has provided me with a unique insight in what makes businesses (financially) successful which I am keen to share with my students. Currently I am a CA accredited Business Valuation specialist and Financial Consultant, alongside other roles as a Contract Facilitator for the CA program of Chartered Accounts Australia and New Zealand, and Research Associate at Victoria University of Wellington. Additionally, and as part of my entrepreneurial activities, I am developing financial web applications (Python, Django, JavaScript) with strong focus on integrating AI tools (Autogen AI, Crew AI and Langchain). My research interests encompass quantitative finance in general, and stochastic models, Real Option Theory and business valuation in particular. In 2018 I completed a PhD dissertation at Victoria University Wellington. The title of the dissertation is Stochastic Continuous-time Cash-flows – A Coupled Linear-Quadratic Model; supervisors were Prof Mark Tippett (The University of Sydney Business School) and Prof Tony van Zijl (Victoria University Wellington). Together with an international network of like-minded researchers, I publish the results of our research in global A+ and A level journals.

Experience

  • Contractor at University of Canterbury
    May 2026 - Present · 2 mos

    Accounting and Information Systems department

  • Entrepreneur at Creatress (NZ) ltd
    Feb 2025 - Present · 1 yr 5 mos

    Managing the development of an ai-powered online business valuation platform using agentic development tools such as Python, Django, AutoGen AI, CrewAI, LangChain and Pydantic.

  • Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand (3 yrs 5 mos)
    • Contract Facilitator and Marker
      Feb 2023 - Present · 3 yrs 5 mos

    • Curriculum Lead Data Analytics and Insights, and Financial Modelling
      Aug 2023 - Feb 2025 · 1 yr 7 mos

  • Research Associate at Victoria University of Wellington
    2018 - Present · 8 yrs 6 mos

  • Senior Lecturer - Applied Business School at Nelson Marlborough Institute of Technology (NMIT)
    Jan 2013 - Mar 2023 · 10 yrs 3 mos

    Transferring prior acquired knowledge, practical know-how and experience to students of the Bachelor of Commerce Programme. Subjects taught include Business Finance, Corporate Finance, International Finance, International Business, Research Project for Accountants, and Quantitative Analysis.