Author and teacher from Western Australia, Dame Wendy Pye.
Author and teacher from Western Australia, Dame Wendy Pye.
“I just decided that no bastard would ever walk me off the place again,” says Dame Wendy Pye, reflecting on how being made redundant at 42 changed her life and led to the creation of her multinational publishing business.
“No bastard would ever - excuse my swearing - take me off the place. Because, you know, I’d spent 21 years building up companies. I’d opened the American market. I’d pioneered the development of education into the American market.”
Pye, who’d grown up poor on an outback Western Australian farm, had already carved a successful career in New Zealand managing the publishing division for the NZ News Group (publisher of the Auckland Star).
When it was taken over by Brierley Investments in 1985 she was sacked without warning.
“There wasn’t a lot of pocket money,” she says. “It was tough but it taught me resilience.”
The autobiography looks back on her journey from the farm to the head of a multinational publishing empire.
Despite many challenges, there’s not a lot of space devoted to self-pity, she tells the Money Talks podcast.
“I really get rather tired of people telling me: ‘I can’t make it because I was impoverished’ or whatever.
“What a load of rubbish. Just get out there and make it happen. And I think that what I’ve proved is, you can.”
The Wendy Pye Group is now considered one of the world’s most successful educational export companies.
It has sold 300 million Sunshine Books across Europe, Asia, the Americas and Africa.
Pye’s current focus is China. She sees a huge opportunity to deliver classic Kiwi children’s books - like the work of Joy Cowley - to the world’s largest market using the latest digital technology.
“I’m really interested in the power of the gaming industry,” she says. “[Gaming] seems to be occupying a lot of children so what my dream is to have really good educational games ... not just something about a giraffe running around with the letter G on the screen or something.”
Pye says she wants to create something that will appeal to every child, particularly children who have reading difficulties or dyslexia.
“Imagine if we can use gaming’s magic and we can marry that with solid education. That’s what I’m working on at the moment with TAL Education.
TAL Education is a Chinese company that offers after-school education and tutoring for students in primary and secondary school, it has annual revenue of US$4.5 billion ($7.6b).
“I love to say those numbers because it’s like Fonterra, isn’t it? But they’re a partner with me and they see the dream too, and they’re a top gaming company in the world,” Pye says.
“That’s what I was doing in China a couple of weeks ago. I don’t know whether I’ll pull it off, but who knows? It’s worth a go.”
It seems that, as she heads into her 80s, Pye has no plans to slow down. Has she never felt like cashing out and stepping back?
“Oh, I might one day if I feel like it,” she says.
It’s not a need for money that drives her anymore, she says.
“I’ve got a lot of champagne so I don’t need to worry too much. At the moment I’m enjoying what I’m doing. You get a bit tired, but really, what do you need.
“I don’t need to go on famous houses of New Zealand or whatever it is, with 3000 bedrooms or something. I’ve got a lovely apartment in New York, I’ve got an apartment in London.
“I’ve got lots of racehorses. I wish they’d win, but, you know, what else do you need? You can only eat so much in a day anyway. And I work with wonderful friends around the world.”
In the end, it is the “challenge of the hunt” that keeps her driven, she says.
Wendy Pye with Sunshine Books in 2011. Photo / Janna Dixon
“I like to think I’m developing a new product that will benefit a lot of people ... and I feel it’s ethical as well. I also help a lot of people as well. But I think that there’s nothing wrong with making money out of helping people.”
Pye says one regret is that her success selling educational programmes to the world has not always been matched here in New Zealand.
“I think the Ministry of Education is always nervous about me because they always think I’m taking over or something, which is a lot of rubbish,” she says.
“What I dream of is that we all should work together to achieve, particularly, the output for Māori and Pacific Island children. We can’t allow all of these children not to learn to read and we need help from everybody.
“Just because I’m a commercial organisation, I think, I give a lot of voluntary time and I give a lot of things away. What’s the hang-up? But there seems to still be a hang-up.”
That seems like a good place to ask Pye a regular Money Talks question: If we could make her Prime Minister for a day, what problem would she most like to solve?
“I find I’ve been looking at a practical way,” she says. “We talk about children not going to school, which is tragic at the moment. I’ve worked a lot in Northland on some charity projects over the last five years. It’s no use just sending a notice to people, ‘I’m going to fine you if you don’t bring your child to school’. I would work with the iwi.
“I’ve looked at this Northland project quite a lot. What brings the kids to school? Maybe we need a minibus to pick these kids up from school? Once we get them to school, we’re fine. You know we can do something with them.
“But it really distresses me to have children ... 15-, 16-year-old boys who can’t read. This is terrible. What are they going to do? What do you do with a 10-year-old child who ram raids? What do you do with that? That is terrible. It’s a social issue that we have to look at, and we can’t just leave it to everyone else.”
Dame Wendy’s book Teaching the World to Read is available from her website, with all proceeds going to charity.
Listen to the full episode to hear more from Dame Wendy Pye on her huge success in educational publishing and children’s reading.
Money Talks is a podcast run by the NZ Herald. It isn’t about personal finance and isn’t about economics - it’s just well-known New Zealanders talking about money and sharing some stories about the impact it’s had on their lives and how it has shaped them.
The series is hosted by Liam Dann, business editor-at-large for the Herald. He is a senior writer and columnist, and also presents and produces videos and podcasts. He joined the Herald in 2003.
