Samantha Arnold, General Manager

With 20 years’ experience in the residential property management industry, Sam carries invaluable knowledge and expertise in all aspects of the property management business. Sam focuses on bringing out the best in our people, by listening, recognising and having a true understanding as she believes this is a natural equation to success for our business. She is constantly looking at ways to raise the professional standard within the business as well as the industry to ensure best practice and service for our customers and clients.

Born in the UK and moving to New Zealand in 2011, Sam brings with her a strong background of staff management, business ownership, training and general operations management, specific to this field.

In her previous role, Sam designed and implemented a blended learning platform by introducing "Elevate", an accreditation training programme that builds employee skills across many aspects of our business. This includes growth, marketing, technology, systems/operations, customer service, managing staff, coaching, personal development and open communication.

Sam is an also an active member of the Reinz RPM steering committee, striving for change and industry standards.

Sharon Sykes, Trainer

With an association of over 29 years in the real estate software management, customer services and training to financial trust accounting, Sharon has a great knowledge of real estate.

After all these years, Sharon is extremely passionate about software training our property management staff and having them achieve a great understanding in using the accounting software.

Sharon offers comprehensive in-house training to all staff.

Stephen Dallow, Trainer

Stephen Dallow joined Barfoot and Thompson in early 2017 and quickly set up the Titirangi branch to be a thriving Property Management branch. In September 2018 Stephen won the award for #1 Top Achiever and the Top Customer Satisfaction Award for West Auckland.

His branch experience coupled with his strong background in facilitation and teaching drama has equipped him to seamlessly take on the role of Property Management Trainer.

Customer service and communication is something Stephen is passionate about and he aims to pass this on through his training sessions of the in-house Elevate Programme and through his own workshops. Stephen also works directly with branches to assist them with training and business development.

Stephen loves the family brand of Barfoot and Thompson and works hard to ensure all staff get the most of the training opportunities afforded to them so they stay up to date with the latest compliance, renting trends and government regulations.

Stephen is also actively involved in the community, is on the board of two school's and supports a number of charities as Master of Ceremonies for their fundraisers and events.

Megan O’Callaghan, In-house Adviser

Megan is a qualified solicitor and brings to Barfoot & Thompson a wide variety of legal experience from several private practice and in-house roles. To date in her career, she has worked across many areas, including residential conveyancing, general practice and, most recently, commercial and intellectual property law.

This background has taught her how to provide clear and pragmatic legal advice. She enjoys analysing the facts of a situation and working out how the law can be applied in a practical way.

She is pleased to be working in-house again, getting to see the real value of her advice to those working at the front line. She enjoys the challenge of grappling with unique and interesting situations residential tenancy law presents.

She is available to assist our property managers and branch managers with their legal queries, updates our standard documents and provides specialised training with regard to new law.