Air New Zealand was in a period of transition in early 2020 when Kate O’Brien took charge of its Airpoints loyalty programme.
The company identified “lifting loyalty” as a key to value creation in its Kia Mau strategy. O’Brien was given the goal of transforming the programme from its traditional role into a profitable high-growth business that resonates with customers.
This meant developing a five-year strategy along with a roadmap for delivering and improving financial performance by setting up Airpoints as a standalone profit centre within the wider business.
Doing this gave Air New Zealand fresh insight into the value of its loyalty programme and a better understanding of how to improve performance.
O’Brien’s team sought out new sources of growth, developed a new white-label credit card, expanded the Airpoints Store and recruited new partners.
“It’s all about expanding and growing the Airpoints programme to make it easier for members to earn points and easier to spend the points”, says O’Brien.
Among other initiatives, her team introduced Flexipay, which allows customers to pay with a combination of points and cash. She added prestigious new brands like Apple and Samsung. During the past two years, the range of products in the store increased from 3000 to 10,000.
All this took place as the effects of the Covid pandemic hit Air New Zealand hard. The airline cut capacity, suspended routes and cut costs in an effort to emerge from the crisis in the best possible shape.
O’Brien says this was a tough time at Air New Zealand: “I’m proud of how we managed it. We pivoted quickly to ensure the programme remained relevant for members by focusing on expanding the non-air elements of the programme. We had to make some difficult decisions in terms of cutting costs and letting staff go, of course, that was heartbreaking to do”.
Another initiative O’Brien works on involves replacing the technology used to run the loyalty programme.
It means moving to a cloud-based, software-as-a-service product. It is a significant, $30 million-plus investment and the largest digital transformation the loyalty business had ever undergone.
“It will give us much more agility and improve the customer experience.”
O’Brien has been with Air New Zealand for nine years. She grew up in Auckland and studied mechanical engineering at Auckland University before realising that wasn’t the right career path for her. Despite loving the maths and physics aspects of the discipline, she gravitated towards the business side.
She moved to Australia where she worked in management consulting before working for Qantas as strategy manager then returning to Auckland in a similar role for Air NZ.
In their comments, the judges for the Young Executive of the Year award said O’Brien impressed them with her “strong and clearly articulated world-view and her passion for business improvement”.
“She has already forged a remarkable path through different sections of the Air New Zealand business and has the ability and insight to grow her career and leadership further.”
Finalist: Nick Flack — Christchurch Airport
Nick Flack grew up in a small rural community in Southland.
He studied economics and accounting at Otago University before embarking on a career at ports and airports around New Zealand.
He says he moved to Christchurch immediately after the earthquakes because he wanted to be involved in rebuilding the large-scale infrastructure in that city.
His first job in the city was at the Lyttleton Port Company. Flack says being part of the early rebuild was an incredible experience. After a couple of years an opportunity opened at Christchurch Airport. He has worked there ever since.
“I started as an infrastructure planner, then moved into a planning manager role looking after the infrastructure,” he says.
It’s a large job, the airport is on a 1000-hectare site and it owns all the roads and water systems.
From there he took on a role managing all the assets including terminals, runways and campus property as well as the infrastructure.
In that role he was part of a project to change the culture of asset management in the organisation by moving from airport staff looking after everything to an outsourced model.
“I like to see it as a model where we do the thinking, they do the doing. It’s driving a culture where we are more mindful about our assets, to be more planned and to be more strategic with the money we spend.”
Today, as the airport’s General Manager — Planning and Sustainability, Flack has added responsibility for sustainability and planning to his asset management role.
Over the past two years this has grown to include Kowhai Park, a 400 hectare renewable energy development; an energy transition role, the job of creating partnerships around the world and to work on sustainable aviation.
His long term goal is to prepare the way for decarbonised air transport and to prove the concept for others around the world to follow.
As part of this, Flack has formed relationships with electric and hydrogen-based aircraft manufacturers.
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In their notes, the judges say: “Nick clearly articulates the challenges and potential solutions around climate change and sustainability that will make him an asset to his company and the wider industry in the years ahead.
“He has coached and mentored other airlines on reducing Scope 1 emissions and leads Christchurch Airport’s renewable transition.
“Nick is skilled, organised and determined. He has a strong orientation to succeed at his challenges and breadth of view to apply these strengths across a range of roles and sectors. It is hard to imagine him not attaining his goals.”
Finalist: Victoria Lam — Fonterra
Now based in Singapore, Victoria Lam manages the global marketing team for Fonterra’s Active Living business units. Her role included establishing Nutiani as a new global brand for the business.
Active Living’s focus is on health and wellness products that the company sells both to consumers looking for health benefits and to medical patients who might have very specific and high nutritional needs.
While many executives have learned to manage remote staff, Lam’s role takes this to a new level. She manages a diverse team across New Zealand, Singapore, China, Amsterdam, France and the United States.
It is impossible to gather everyone together for an all-hands meeting, so meetings rotate through time zones with a member dropping out and catching up later with a recording.
She has learnt important skills through managing this way: “The skills I am developing in remote global leadership, will define future business leaders and be critical to New Zealand’s success in an increasingly globalised environment”.
There’s a role for technology in this.
“We have a lot of virtual environments where we’re co-planning together as if in a room, or we are editing documents for communications and media live,” says Lam.
“But we have people from all across the time zones working on it.”
It’s hard work, but she says the diversity in the team “enriches our ability to cross-check and make sure things are really robust”.
Putting together this team in a pandemic was a challenge. She says she had to recruit, interview and onboard team members virtually.
“I actually haven’t met all of my team, which is a strange situation to be in after two years. And a lot of my team members have not met each other.”
When Lam stepped into her role in this year, the timelines for the Nutiani product launch had already been established. The original plan was going to drive a lot of protein ingredient promotion, as this was evolving she saw an opportunity to tackle immunity needs.
She says it was something people were interested in, especially with Covid in the background. So the team pivoted, dropping the protein ingredient promotion and switching to immunity.
Lam’s detailed understanding of the technical and scientific requirements for the development of new products impressed the award judges who also warmed to her enthusiasm for promoting New Zealand food technology to the world.
This, they noted, “will make her a highly valuable business leader as her career progresses”.
· The Young Executive of the Year award is sponsored by Meredith Connell (MC).
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