At last year’s high school prize-giving, Ainsley Ashe was awarded the $3000 Matthew Marshall Paying it Forward Scholarship, the second time the scholarship had been presented.
Matt says it made perfect sense to offer the scholarship as a way of paying back the school and local community.
As he moved to tertiary education at Otago University in 2002, he, too, benefited from financial help, with scholarships from Te Puke Rotary and The Business Results Group (now Stem Rural Accountants).
The latter was cash, plus the chance to work at the accountancy firm for the summer.
“That gave me a good grounding and some practical experience,” he says.
“I was very fortunate, and I wasn’t the only kid [at Te Puke High School] that would have benefitted from a scholarship.
“For me, it was a good boost and what I needed to hit the ground running at university to buy textbooks and help with all those things that come with moving to the other side of the country.”
The Paying it Forward Scholarship is offered to help those whose situations may not allow them to consider tertiary education.
“I’m a firm believer in tertiary education and, for people who might otherwise not be able to follow their passions for financial reasons, if [the scholarship] helps them, that’s a great gift, for me to be able to help them.
“Hopefully it can create a bit of momentum and we can get a few other people too, in the future, possibly thinking about paying it forward.”
Matt says while at school, he focused on subject areas such as maths, economics and accounting.
“That sort of skill set. But the other one was typing - that’s one of the skills that’s been extremely useful.”
He recalls one of his teachers, Phillipa King, saying: “He tends to push the boundaries, so he knows where they are.”
Leaving school in 2001, he studied commerce at Otago, finishing his studies in Budapest on a university exchange.
From there he went to the UK, where he worked for the Royal Bank of Scotland in Edinburgh.
He moved to Melbourne in 2006, staying in banking, “and I’ve been here ever since”.
In the mid-2010s, opportunity knocked again.
“There was a chance to take over an existing logistics business where the owner was looking for an exit strategy, was looking to retire and was willing to do a handover.
“I was at the end of my days in the banking industry, looking for a change and really passionate about running my own business.”
He saw a chance to upscale, improve the technology and “really drive some capacity improvements and deliver a really unique customer experience ... and create something we could be really proud of”.
Matt’s wife Fiona also came on board.
“We went into it together. It was one of the best things that we’ve done, in that we can share problems and, when you’re not there, there’s always someone else there that’s got the same focus area.”
He says he has always been into the “entrepreneurial side of things” and can trace his desire to own his own business back to his early years in Te Puke.
“A mate and I used to sell yard glasses at university. That was a good little side hustle and a good introduction to business; making sure we were actually making money and not selling for a loss.”
The business side of the kiwifruit industry was his experience at home up Te Matai Road. He saw the operation of different businesses while working at The Business Results Group and remembers the main reason for working in a packhouse being “trying to make a few bucks to buy a surfboard”.
“All those skills are things you learn growing up in Te Puke and they are not to be underestimated, and very applicable in the big wide world.”
