The NZ Herald interview some of the winners from the Deloitte Top 200 awards night. Video / NZ Herald
EDITORIAL
As a country, we typically don’t celebrate business success well. On the rare occasions we do, it can at times attract cynicism and a dose of tall poppy syndrome.
It was heartening therefore to see the positive reception to the Deloitte Top 200 Awards held in Aucklandthis week.
The business sector needed this.
Yes, business confidence is on the rise again, but the outlook for economic growth is stubbornly tepid. Companies are struggling through to the end of the year and there’s been a noticeable lift in insolvencies among small businesses and a wave of redundancies hitting both the corporate sector and public sector in recent months.
But New Zealand businesses have shown resilience in the face of enormous challenges over the past four years. Now is the time for optimism and inspiration.
Sir Richard Taylor and his wife Tania Rodger, co-founders of the award-winning and world-leading Wētā Workshop, delivered plenty of that on Wednesday after being named visionary leaders at the Deloitte awards.
The pair have been instrumental in the success of New Zealand’s creative industry, helping attract millions of cinema-goers worldwide via their involvement in more than 160 films. Wētā has five Oscars and four Baftas to show for it.
Asked by MC Jack Tame to explain the ethos that he and Tania bring to the business, Taylor talked of creating a family environment and leading by example.
“One of the most important aspects of any business is the people. And it’s reinforced listening tonight to some of the speeches that the success of the business is the people who are there supporting you all the way through,” Taylor told the audience at the Viaduct Events Centre.
“I think everyone in the room hopefully would agree that at the end of the day, the primary thing you’re seeking is certainty, certainty for your team, certainty for yourselves, and in the fast-flowing river that is the film industry, there is very little certainty.
“The two greatest aspirations in most people’s lives, certainly in our own, is to own your own home and to start a family and that’s very hard to do with an uncertainty about your future career.
“So trying to find certainty in what is often considered a very uncertain industry is the thing that we seek.”
Taylor’s approach to business and his message to the crowd was about the importance of diversification and being able to witness young people’s creativity and desire to make things with their hands.
“We’ve been making things our whole lives. Tania and I have come up with this saying of late, the thing we love to make today is other makers, right?”
Jack Tame and Stacey Morrison hosted the Deloitte Top 200 Awards in 2022, and were back again this year.
You could see the appreciation that the business audience felt for Taylor’s words in that room. These are tough times and tough decisions are being made affecting employees up and down the country right now.
The fact that small business accounting software company Xero won Company of the Year could be seen as controversial given it had to lay off staff this year and is no longer publicly listed in New Zealand.
But Xero is an out-and-out Kiwi success story, arguably our most successful company.
The innovation from founder Rod Drury continues under new management and the company will employ many more people in the years ahead.
New Zealand needs more of these companies and if celebrating success helps to achieve that, then we should do it, and do it well.
