My biggest influence: Catherine Savage

Catherine Savage

Ask Catherine Savage, managing director of AMP Capital Investors, who the biggest influence on her career has been and she barely pauses before blurting out "my parents".

They always told her she could do whatever she wanted.

"So I never had any boundaries. That meant that I had the confidence to try different things and I had parents who were very supportive of that."

The result of this saw Savage, 37, take the reins at New Zealand's biggest fund manager four years ago.

After instilling confidence in their four children, Savage says her parents (her father is the well-known Wellington businessman Roy Savage) have looked on as they chose very different fields to work in.

Her oldest brother worked for Fay, Richwhite and now lives on a farm, her other brother is working as a psychotherapist and her younger sister did chemistry and music degrees and then wrote a science-fiction fantasy.