In Leaders Getting Coffee episode 48, our guest is the Deputy Leader of the Act Party and Minister of Internal Affairs, Brooke Van Velden.

A young Brooke Van Velden walked into a pub with a group of friends to celebrate a concert they’d just given. In doing so they stumbled across a get together of Act Party members and a relationship that was to change her life was born.

Van Velden is now the Minister of workplace relations and the Minister of Internal Affairs as well as deputy leader of the Act Party. She tells the story of her grandfather’s journey to New Zealand after world war two and of a comfortable upbringing in Auckland.

Her shyness at school was eventually overcome when the school’s choir master worked out that she could sing. The music department became her hangout and a shy schoolgirl became a confident performer, a skill that was to suit her forthcoming political career.

That political career started in the back office of the Act Party as she worked behind the scenes on a signature policy, the End-of-Life Choice Act, which passed into law in 2019, and she speaks respectfully of the touching stories she encountered traveling the country as that policy developed.

On the Leaders Getting Coffee podcast, Brooke speaks to Bruce Cotterill about a wide range of topics, including life in the opposition benches in the 2020 – 2023 term and the transition to government for the current term.

We go behind the scenes and find out what it’s like to be a part of the coalition negotiations, and we learn that she only found out about her ministerial appointments when those negotiations were complete.

Business owners and entrepreneurs will enjoy her comments about her desire to create a high wage growth economy with a flexible labour market and creating both the opportunities and the confidence to invest in our country. 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In Leaders Getting Coffee episode 47, our guest is the Mayor of Hutt City, Campbell Barry.

At the time of his election, and at the age of just 28, Campbell Barry was the youngest ever Mayor of a major city in New Zealand. 

He’s a local boy who has never moved that far away from home. He grew up in Wainuiomata and went to the local high school where he was the First XV captain and Deputy Head Boy. He still lives there today.

On leaving school Campbell soon found himself elected to the Wainuiomata Community Board at the age of just 19, and so began an early local government political career. Two terms as a Councillor at Hutt City followed before, in what he says was a decision made out of frustration, and he threw his hat into the ring for the Mayoralty. A trusting public voted him in and, it seems, they have benefitted from doing so.

Those six years as Mayor have seen him focus on one of Wellington’s biggest issues, water infrastructure, where they’ve increased new pipeline installation tenfold during his term. He’s also overseen the introduction of the living wage among Council employees, an overhaul of rubbish and recycling management, and the completion of the Te Ngaengae pool complex.

But it seems his greatest source of pride is the RiverLink project, a project encompassing flood protection, transport improvements and urban revitalisation, enhancing the riverbank with parks, pedestrian-friendly pathways, outdoor dining and street markets.

During the Leaders Getting Coffee podcast Campbell talks to Bruce Cotterill about the range of challenges facing Councils and the recent showdown with central government over spending levels. He also speaks about his own ideas to raise additional revenue to meet the needs caused by years of under-investment in Council infrastructure.

His comments don’t go unchallenged either, with host Bruce Cotterill raising some of the wasted spending we’ve seen from Councils in recent years. Campbell Barry is up for the lively debate however and an entertaining conversation ensues.

Campbell Barry is departing at this year’s election, and one wonders where he will go next. We don’t often get access to the inner workings of a Council and this discussion on the eve of his departure provides for an interesting commentary on the challenges facing local government.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In Leaders Getting Coffee episode 46, our guest is Shamubeel Eaqub, Chief Economist at Simplicity.

Shamubeel Eaqub came to prominence in New Zealand as a sought-after economist explaining his complicated world in simple terms to readers and viewers through the New Zealand media. At the time he was the Principal Economist at the NZ Institute of Economic Research.

How he came to that position, from an immigrant boy at age 10 is a worthy story in itself. But this discussion is so much more. A typical Kiwi upbringing followed his arrival, and as a soccer mad kid he found his way quickly. He studied economics at Lincoln University in Canterbury and then launched a career that has seen this passionate economist make a massive contribution to his adopted country.

During the Leaders Getting Coffee podcast, Shamubeel talks to Bruce Cotterill about his journey, new jobs in foreign cities and eventually success.

But it is the study of the local and global economy that makes this story compulsive listening. The conversation covers topics as broad as local school funding and global military spending.

Eaqub says that there is no question that New Zealand’s post covid recovery has been slower than other countries, and he cites our low productivity, slowing migration and fiscal weakness as key causes. And having researched and written extensively on New Zealand’s infrastructure deficit, it is this topic that makes for a most interesting discussion.

But there are plenty of positives too. And in a world threatened by war and America’s tariffs, he cites the unique strength of our relationships around the world and the value we can provide to other countries as the platform from which our recovery can develop. 

This is a highly informative and entertaining conversation about New Zealand’s challenges and it’s opportunities, between two people who think and care about the future of New Zealand.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In Leaders Getting Coffee episode 45, our guest is Andrew Stone, former CEO of Saatchi & Saatchi New Zealand and one of New Zealand’s most influential advisors to CEOs.

Andrew Stone is steeped in advertising. He makes it his business to understand businesses and the consumers they seek to attract. And he’s good at doing so.

So much so, he’s led some of New Zealand’s most influential advertising agencies at a time when they’ve been at their peak, with some of our biggest companies and even bigger campaigns.

He cut his teeth in the advertising business with some of the best advertising agencies of the time. He learned the trade with Colenso in New Zealand and Saatchi & Saatchi in London before returning to New Zealand and eventually leading Saatchi’s in his home country.

Along the way there’s been plenty of lessons; lessons that he proudly shares with experienced CEO’s and young people starting out. There’s a family man in there too, and you sense that the dinner table conversations over the years have left his two sons well equipped for their own future.

In the Leaders Getting Coffee podcast, Andrew speaks to Bruce Cotterill about some of the big brands, and big personalities, he’s worked with. There’s some reminiscing about campaigns for Lion, Toyota, ASB Bank and others from the heyday of the industry in New Zealand. But there’s room for a thoughtful discussion on the impact of Artificial Intelligence on consumer behaviours and the advertising industry that will drive that behaviour.

In his post advertising life, Andrew Stone has re-imagined himself as a consultant to CEO’s and Boards, helping to lead major transformation projects across rapidly changing industries. So there’s a great discussion about Telecom’s transition to Spark and many years later, Vodafone’s move to One NZ. Again, it’s the people who make the difference.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In Leaders Getting Coffee episode 44, our guest is Dr. David Teece, one of New Zealand’s most successful entrepreneurs and a highly decorated university academic.

David Teece left New Zealand as a young man having completed his Master’s degree at the University of Canterbury. His destination was the University of Pennsylvania where he would study for a second Master's degree and ultimately a PhD in Economics.

That was the start of an amazing career in academia, one which included some of the top universities in the world. He taught at Pennsylvania and then Oxford and Stanford, before a professorship at the age of just 32 took him to University of California, Berkeley.

That career has seen David Teece ranked as the worlds most cited scholar in the combined fields of business and management and Accenture’s list of the world’s Top 50 business intellectuals.

But his career as an entrepreneur, managed in parallel with his academic career is where his success and influence are equally prevalent. He has built not one, but two global consulting firms specialising in the provision of economic, business, and financial consulting services to businesses and governments around the world.

Along the way, he’s maintained his links to New Zealand. He participated in the Knowledgewave conference in 2001 and worked with Sir Stephen Tindall in the creation of KEA – Kiwi Expatriates Abroad – to leverage the networks, experiences and talents of the more than one million Kiwis who live overseas. And his extensive interests in farming and winemaking in the South Island keep him attached to his original roots.

In the Leaders Getting Coffee podcast, Bruce Cotterill speaks to David Teece about his unique and fascinating career, one which has earned him Royal honours in the form of a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit. And there is also plenty of discussion about the importance of good leadership from one of the world’s leading management thinkers, and some commentary on New Zealand’s place in the world, the current state of Donald Trump’s USA, and his thoughts on a troubled world.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In Leaders Getting Coffee episode 43, our guest is the CEO of the Breast Cancer Foundation of New Zealand, Ah-Leen Rayner.

It would seem that a career in the creative arts would suit the skills and interests of Ah-Leen Rayner. And indeed she headed off, after what she admits was an unspectacular school life, to pursue an Arts degree.

But it was anthropology, the study of humanity, that captured her attention. You get the sense that it still does.

That study led to an early career in sales, selling to supermarkets. But that was before she was captured by global conglomerate 3M, a company she worked with for 17 years. Her tenure there included a period during which she was responsible for one of the Company’s biggest products. The Post It Note.

Next came a six-year stint in the blokey environment of Kiwirail, where she was responsible for creating tourism opportunities out of what was predominantly a freight network. She calls it ‘creating an asset that connected our scenery with an international audience.’ That’s how creativity is applied to business.

But as Covid came and went, she wanted to do something that aligned with her strong purpose orientation, something that did good for the community. About that time, the Breast Cancer Foundation was looking for a new CEO. The rest is history.

In our latest Leaders Getting Coffee podcast, Ah-Leen Rayner speaks to Bruce Cotterill about that leadership journey and her four years at the helm of one of our largest, and most important, charities.

The messages are well known. The importance of breast screening, mammograms and early detection. But there is more to the Breast Cancer story and we learn of the never-ending battle for funding, the unwillingness of consecutive governments to invest in the best drugs available, and the good news, the new initiatives and technologies being introduced.

With our host calling the Breast Cancer Foundation as “by women, for women” we also get plenty of insight for how we can get men taking their own health as effectively as the women do. And here’s a hint, we blokes need those women to help us.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In Leaders Getting Coffee episode 42, our guest is Distinguished Professor Emeritus Paul Spoonley, of Massey University.

Paul Spoonley is a career academic with a remarkable ability to explain complex matters in very straight-forward terms.

But that straight forward manner is less surprising when we hear about someone who spent five years working in the freezing works,and later started writing his PhD thesis on that topic before abandoning it under pressure from the industry.

And so a career in academia followed, and the independent thinker shows through in Spoonley’s discussion and in his attitude to the future of the country. If only the politicians would listen.

Drawing heavily from his recent presentation entitled “The future of New Zealand: Demography as Desitny” Professor Spoonley conducts a wide-ranging discussion on the make-up of New Zealand and the challenges for our growing population.

We learn that Auckland’s population is set to grow by up to 700,000 people in the next 13 years, and we discuss the implications of that growth for infrastructure, health services and education. Professor Spoonley discusses the reasons behind the most rapidly growing regions in the country. And we hear about how an ageing population at a time of declining fertility rates threatens the way of life we have come to enjoy.

But there are solutions too, and plenty of advice for governments around the world who are grappling with immigration issues. Education, in particular, could become more relevant if greater access to apprenticeships was available and digital literacy more widely taught.

This is a fascinating discussion, filled with insights from a man who has made the make-up of our societies his life’s work.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In Leaders Getting Coffee episode 41, our guest is real estate’s Martin Cooper, the principal of Harcourts Cooper & Co.

Most will know him as the man on television shouting “the North Shore, what a great place to live.” But Martin Cooper’s story started in Queenstown where he grew up and where he admits to taking the magnificent landscape around him for granted. He was not the most committed student, but he enjoyed sports and the outdoors adventures that his natural surroundings offered.

His father was a cabinet minister, and his work saw the family move to Mosgiel in Dunedin while Martin was at high school. Upon finishing school, and a couple of jobs that saw him away from home a lot, his desire to play senior rugby resulted in him returning to Dunedin and looking for a regular and local job.

That search led him to real estate, a business naturally suited to his energetic and charismatic personality. He found it tough at first, but after three years, he decided it was to be his career.

Despite the recession of the early 1990’s he established his own real estate business and, after a few tough years, learned that he was suited to recruiting, motivating and developing great people.

Success followed in the Dunedin market, but Martin soon found it hard to resist the opportunities afforded by a bigger market and he moved to Auckland, intent on establishing himself and his business on the North Shore. Again, he found the early going tough, but he’d been there before.

The result is Harcourts Cooper & Co, a 20 office, 480 person real estate business and a personal profile to match.

Martin Cooper’s journey is an inspirational leadership story. On the Leaders Getting Coffee podcast, he talks to Bruce Cotterill about building resilience through the tough times, the importance of good people, and of putting a little bit of Disneyland into the aspirations of his team. He speaks openly about the pressures of keeping his business going through the Covid lockdowns and the toll of a recent complaints process.

But the real value is in his view of how to be successful in a business that rewards success well. And of course, there’s plenty of advice on the state of the real estate market, and what lays ahead for first home buyers.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In Leaders Getting Coffee episode 40, our guest is Lawyer turned Novelist, Rachel Paris.

Success is a recurring theme in the life of Rachel Paris. With degrees from Auckland University in Economics and Law, and the Law Society’s prize for the top law student under her wing, she joined one of the country’s most prestigious law firms, Bell Gully.

A spectacular law career in New Zealand and around the world followed. Along the way she completed her Master of Law degree at one of the world’s most prestigious law schools, Harvard Law. Her dissertation there was cited as ‘influential’ by the Wall Street Journal.

After her Kiwi OE via a law firm in London, she returned to New Zealand, quickly becoming a Partner back at Bell Gully where, she became an expert in Banking and Finance law in the free lending days before the GFC, and she oversaw much of the post-crash restructuring that became the aftermath of those heady days.

Uniquely, she put that career aside and left the law partnership, as her family moved to London, following husband Jason’s career at Vodafone. There, she created her own boutique law firm specialising in Blockchain technologies and supporting her global client base part time while organising a growing family in a new part of the world.

But, having returned to New Zealand, it is her latest adventure that is the most fascinating. A masters degree in creative writing back at her old stomping ground at Auckland University and now a new book. And not a book about the law or even blockchain. But a novel, a twisting turning thriller about toxic rich people behaving badly!

The book, published in New Zealand and Australia, is called “See How They Fall” and has already attained Number 1 Bestseller status, while a Hollywood production company has optioned the rights for the big screen.

During the Leaders Getting Coffee podcast Rachel Paris talks about her amazing career and the lessons in leadership she has learned along the way. We learn more about Bitcoin, Harvard Law School, and the importance of making an impact, while balancing a family with three busy children and a CEO husband.

And, as you might expect, there is both support and strongly worded advice for a government with plenty on its plate.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In Leaders Getting Coffee episode 39, our guest is the brains behind the four day week, and Founder of Perpetual Guardian, Andrew Barnes.

Andrew Barnes survived the hurly burly of London’s investment banking world in the 1980’s, the result of which saw him sent to Australia to manage the exposures held downunder by his banking masters in the UK. He moved to Australia for a month and stayed for twenty years.

After returning briefly to the UK in the mid 2000’s, the GFC saw him head to New Zealand and a unique opportunity with the business that became Perpetual Guardian.

During the Leaders Getting Coffee podcast Andrew Barnes speaks to Bruce Cotterill about the lessons he’s learned from a highly varied career and how re-defining risk led to his ability to make better investment decisions.

Barnes came to prominence a few years back when his book, “The Four Day Week”, was launched during the covid lockdowns. Born of an article in the Economist, and time to think on a long flight, the concept of a four day working week and resultant improvements in productivity has been adopted by companies and countries around the world. His view that people can be more productive in four days than in five makes for a compelling conversation.

Barnes, who these days splits his days between the UK and New Zealand also offers his thoughts on the different challenges being faced by each country. He cites the failure of politicians pursuing a change agenda to “take the people along with them” as a primary reason for the unravelling of our once cohesive culture.

As for what he would do if he was Prime Minister for a day, his answer should be compulsory listening for every parliamentary MP.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.