Phil Thomson, Co-Founder & CEO at Auror

Phil Thomson is a New Zealand entrepreneur, former lawyer and co-founder and chief executive of Auror, the global retail crime intelligence platform used by retailers and law enforcement agencies around the world.

Auror was founded in 2012 by Thomson, James Corbett and Tom Batterbury, who left careers in law, consulting and technology to take on a problem most had written off as an unavoidable cost of doing business. Organised retail crime is estimated to be a US$150 billion global issue, yet information about it was historically siloed, poorly tracked and often handled in ways that did little for community safety or privacy. The founders set out to build the world’s first retail crime intelligence software platform, an idea that began life as a University of Auckland Velocity challenge entrant and a first deployment in a handful of Auckland supermarkets.

As chief executive and co-founder, Thomson has helped position Auror as a platform for safer stores and better collaboration between retailers and police. The company digitises crime reporting, connects the dots on repeat and organised offending and helps law enforcement focus on the most harmful crime. A landmark partnership with New Zealand Police, established in 2014, eventually extended across the national force and has saved police hundreds of thousands of investigative hours each year.

Auror has grown well beyond New Zealand into Australia, North America and the United Kingdom, with offices in Denver and London and is now used by some of the world’s largest retailers, including Walmart, Woolworths and Coles. In 2022, Thomson and his co-founders were named EY Entrepreneur of the Year for New Zealand.

Thomson’s background as a commercial lawyer specialising in intellectual property and privacy has shaped Auror’s careful approach to a sensitive problem, one where trust, responsible data use and public confidence matter as much as the product itself.

His story reflects the kind of founder New Zealand needs more of: someone willing to take on a hard, unglamorous problem and solve it with real-world impact. Auror’s growth shows how a Kiwi company can build global relevance by focusing on safety, evidence and practical collaboration.

Sources: Auror · EY New Zealand · University of Auckland