Your Trusted Advisors / Ko o Kaitohutohu Whakapono

Chris Knight

Chris Knight is Chief Executive Officer of Opteon Global. Since taking on the role of CEO in 2016, Chris has cultivated a growth culture through initiation and support of more than 20 acquisitions throughout the United States, Australia, and New Zealand.

In 2021, Chris relocated from Australia to the United States to further grow Opteon USA which provides both appraisal management and staff appraisal services. He is passionate about market disruption through development of great people, process, data software, and technology. By leveraging strategic partnerships, Chris aims to replicate the success Opteon has had in other markets to bring consistent same-day appraisals to the United States.

In addition to being a certified Australian valuer, Chris also has an accounting background and dual master’s degrees in Business Administration and Business Property. On a personal note, Chris is a licensed pilot and golfer.

James Harkness

James was appointed Chief Financial Officer in December 2017. James leads financial strategy, reporting, analysis, compliance and advice across Opteon.

James has a proven track record engaging with progressive leaders who thrive on delivering results in high growth businesses.

With a combination of financial, commercial and operational experience, James contributes to Opteon’s leadership through developing and executing financial, commercial, cost leadership, operational efficiency and people development strategies.

Before joining Opteon, James was Chief Financial Officer at the ASX listed Capital Health Limited, and held senior executive roles at CareerOne, Jetstar, Nu Energy and Acciona.

James is a qualified Chartered Accountant, graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors and holds a Bachelor of Commerce from the University of Melbourne.

Lisa Billington

Lisa commenced with Opteon in 2016, playing an important role in Opteon’s transformation to an integrated structure in early 2017, and Opteon’s 27 acquisitions since her commencement.

Lisa is responsible for Opteon’s global legal, risk, compliance, quality and secretariat functions, leading a team of 25 professionals to support Opteon’s strategy and growth in a way that balances opportunities with risk.

Lisa is a senior corporate lawyer with significant experience across a wide range of areas including mergers & acquisitions, corporate governance and general commercial law. Prior to joining the Opteon team, Lisa worked at law firms Clayton Utz and Maddocks and in-house for an education and media company.

Lisa holds a current legal practising certificate, a Bachelor of Laws (Hons) and Bachelor of Science (Hons) from the University of Melbourne and has completed the Governance Institute of Australia’s Certificate of Governance Practice. She was included in Australasian Lawyer’s 2022 in-house leaders list.

Johan Wikman

Johan joined Opteon in October 2022 as Chief Technology Officer and is responsible for the company’s products and technology. Johan has over 20 years’ experience in leading high performing software engineering teams. 

Prior to joining Opteon, he spent 10 years at Appen leading the engineering team as CTO and VP of Engineering implementing technologies that evolved the company from a service to a tech led business. During his time on the executive team, the company experienced revenue growth of more than 1,400%, the engineering team grew from 3 people to over 100 and he was part of the team that took the company public in 2015.

In 2010, Johan founded Kontribune, an online publishing platform for communities to share and inspire through the power of story, which was acquired by Appen in 2012. Before that, he was founder and co-founder of multiple startups leading the development of technology teams in B to C and B to B solution. His career also includes engineering leadership roles at Autodesk, Zynga and Lithium.

Johan spent his formative years in Stockholm, Sweden before locating to the San Francisco Bay Area.

Lee Trice

Lee Trice founded The Trice Group in 1987. After growing that firm to become the largest appraisal company in the MidAtlantic Region, Lee co-founded Valucentric with Real Valuation Services to replicate that success on a national scale. In 2021, Valucentric was acquired by Opteon to escalate growth around AMC, Appraisal Staff, and PropTech SaaS solutions. Lee was awarded professional designations from the Appraisal Institute and RICS, which is a global and multi-discipline valuation professional organization.

Scott Chapman

With many years’ experience establishing and leading large-scale businesses, Scott has significant expertise across the property sector with a career spanning over 20 years in the broader property industry and 14 years within valuations.

With a proven track record of strategy execution, building high performing teams and delivering business growth in complex environments, Scott brings a breadth of expertise across the end to end business value chain including sales, client relationship and account management, leading projects, customer service delivery and product development.

Scott has been with Opteon since 2009 and holds an MBA from Deakin University and a Masters in Property (Valuations) from RMIT.