Weta co-founder bags award

Richard Taylor

Using the success of movie trilogy Lord of the Rings to build more businesses saw Oscar-winner Richard Taylor last night named the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year.

Director of film and television effects facility Weta Workshop, Taylor's business interests include TV production - and the specialist manufacture of chainmail.

"This guy is creative and he's making a lot of money," said competition chief judge David Johnson. "He's created so many off-shoot businesses in the last seven years."

Taylor came from humble beginnings to become a world leader.

He and partner Tania Rodger founded special effects company RT FX in a Wellington flat 20 years ago.

In 1994, the pair co-founded Weta Workshop, co-owned with director Peter Jackson and producer Jamie Selkirk.

Related businesses now include visual effects facility Weta Digital, merchandise arm Weta Collectibles and Weta Tenzan Chainmaille, which supplies armour to the movie industry around the world.

Taylor's leadership and business acumen played a key role in growing the Wellington-based business and leveraging its intellectual property across a variety of related industries, said Johnson.

"By the end of the year, he'll have 1000 creative people working in Miramar.

"It just sort of rolls off his tongue - the movies that he's working on, there's seven or eight in the process at different stages at this time, he's just coming to the second year of his own television series."

The growth meant the company had become its own client and could better shape its destiny, said Johnson.

Taylor was not just successful, he also had a passion for the job, said Johnson.

"For many years he didn't look forward to going home because he worked in a 'toy shop'. Every day was exciting - he'd either blow up a truck or create a monster, or whatever it would be."

Taylor will represent New Zealand at the Ernst & Young World Entrepreneur of the Year in Monte Carlo next year.

The competition's four other winners were House of Travel's Chris Paulsen, Cabco Group's Doug Bartlett, Infinity Investment Group Bob Robertson and Mactec Aerospace International's Mike McDonald.


Richard Taylor

* Co-founded special effects company RT FX in a flat in Wellington 20 years ago.

* Business interests now include Weta Workshop & Digital, Weta Collectibles and Weta Tenzan Chainmaille.

* International accolades include five Oscars and four BAFTAs.