Just a quick coffee with the boss

By IRENE CHAPPLE


He hares down the hallway, five steps ahead and not looking back. He treads water for two minutes while discussing the best spot for a photo - then, action.

The movements are brisk and no-nonsense, muscles fluid under a short, slight frame topped with a slab of grey hair.

Through the swinging doors, into the newly created beer barn built with a faux antiquity: rubbed timber walls, gold lighting and DB brews on tap.

Brian Blake - a beer baron, of sorts - obligingly stands on a stool so the photographer can capture his tanned visage above the beer taps.

He's been at DB Breweries for 21 years now, a number cruncher who worked his way up the ladder to head the formerly listed brewer.

The company bade farewell to the NZX this month after more than 70 years. A generous full takeover bid from its parent, Singapore-based Asia Pacific Breweries, owned in turn by Heineken, was successful.

And now Blake - available after having finished weeks of "coffee with the boss" sessions around the country - is being bailed up on a stool at the bar.

He jokes about past photos when he had to stand on books to reach the heights of colleagues and looks terribly keen to get back to his rather more comfy desk, where he has notes to remind him what to say.

He wants to talk about the team spirit at DB and how he grew its trading profits over recent years.

And he's full of assurances there will be no change to the board or the company's direction, despite an easing of requirements now the company is not listed.

But, first, a little bit of sport talk. The man looks frenetically fit. And, unsurprisingly, sport is a family tradition.

Blake was a former senior club rugby halfback. The position, in Blake's words, held by "the small, feisty cheeky ones that get in trouble all the time".

The 54-year old with a quick smile and wrinkly eyed laugh is still mad keen on keeping his physique in shape.

For the past four years, he has risen religiously at 5am. "I get on my exercycle and do a combination of an exercycle and a bit of weights and a lot of stretching and I do that for 50 minutes and I make sure I do five mornings a week and, on the weekends, I try and do a little bit more."

Even though, with a guffaw, 'I don't necessarily go to bed early either."

His uncle is the famous Allan "Kiwi" Blake, the African American who captained the New Zealand Maori team. His sister was the secretary of the Carterton rugby club.

And the sporting gene has been passed down the generations, with Blake's daughters talented swimmers.

The man who now sits on a pay and benefits package of almost $600,000 comes from working class Wairarapa, a rural upbringing with a dad who worked at the freezing works and who would drink jugs of beer with his son at the RSA club.

Blake also turned to the freezing works to earn his first dollars, working there through university in Wellington to save for a trip to the 1972 Munich Olympics.

The dream trip turned ugly with the terrorist attack on the Israeli athletes. That "sort of spoiled the Games really".

After tripping round Europe, Blake returned to start his corporate career, beginning at what is now Ernst &Young, then a shipping company, before joining DB.

From a successful stint heading the central region - and overseeing growth in the Wellington market share from 27 per cent to 41 per cent - Blake, in 1997, became managing director of the group.

When asked how he became the manager he is, Blake pauses. And thinks.

"I think I understand what motivates people. I think there is a tendency to underestimate the potential in people. If they understand what you are trying to achieve and if you can give them some responsibility and accountability, and some freedom, I think nine times out of 10 you are pleasantly surprised by the results you achieve."

Staff are rewarded with bonuses of up to 10 per cent - subject to individual and team aims - if the company reaches its target of 10 per cent growth in trading earnings.

Blake on his position: "I think our role as managers and leaders is creating an environment in which people can achieve."

Hence the "coffee with the boss" sessions. Last week, Blake was in Timaru, chatting with groups of staff. It's their time. Like this, mimics Blake, sitting back in his chair and folding his arms: "Guys, it's your session."

This is how he gets around the 500-odd staff at DB's 14 offices and four breweries in Auckland, Timaru, Mangatainoka and Greymouth.

And so Blake gets feedback on the company and on the company's markets. In his time, he has seen a sea change in how Kiwis drink beer, from the 6 o'clock swill to the more sophisticated drinker of today.

It's a sea change that saw the beer market shrink by a third through the '90s, forcing DB and its bigger competitor, Lion Nathan, to learn disciplines around adding value and driving the premium beer sector.

Through those years, DB also suffered under a fractured leadership.

Market share sank from 40 per cent in 1990 to a 34 per cent low.

Under Blake, the company has been restructured and is recovering market share. In 1999, DB quit liquor retailing, closed wholesaler Allied Liquor Merchant, and sold Corbans wines.

The company, says Blake, needed to "stick to its knitting".

PricewaterhouseCoopers, in its report on the Asia Pacific full takeover bid, said the company had produced an "impressive return" to shareholders since 2000.

The bid - sitting at a generous $9.50, a 20 per cent premium above the average share price trade for the 20 previous days - was rapidly taken up, leaving DB unlisted for the first time in almost 75 years.

But Blake insists that business - and here he slips guiltily into a cliche - "will continue as usual". And no, he's not about to retire. This beer baron's staying put, at the DB offices in Otahuhu.

"I'm passionate about the business and thoroughly enjoying the success and results we're achieving," he says.

And there is still work to do because - and here Blake pulls out one of his favourite sayings - "we're a very good company but we're not yet great".