The Patridge brothers, Davida McKenzie, Olivia Luxon, Miller Hawkesby, Greta van den Brink and Cameo Turner.
The Prime Minister’s daughter, business gurus, a budding actress and Kiwis crushing it overseas — man about town Ricardo Simich shares his society people to watch this year.
Olivia Luxon’s new designer gig
While her dad has been running the country, Olivia Luxon has been carving out a careeracross the ditch.
The 23-year-old daughter of Prime Minister Christopher Luxon in 2023 graduated from Melbourne University with a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology and Criminology. During her time at university, she worked for various companies as a content creator, giving her vital experience.
She has completed her first year working for French beauty giant L’Oréal, which has its office in St Kilda, as a brand marketing trainee for its Maybelline New York brand, followed by a stint as a product and E-commerce management trainee for Lancôme.
The management trainee programmes at L’Oreal, prepared her for her role of assistant trade marketing manager for the perfume and beauty brands of Giorgio Armani, Valentino and Designer Brand Fragrances, which she started in November.
A step into the beauty world sees Luxon further diversifying what has already been a multi-faceted life.
Her father’s work saw her born in the United Kingdom and raised in Canada and the United States.
Luxon attended Diocesan School for Girls, where she became known for being a student on a mission.
In 2015, she spent time working in the slums of Manila. After visiting a home for children rescued from sex trafficking, she was inspired to write a slam poem based on her experience.
Leading charity organisation Tearfund New Zealand, dedicated to addressing global poverty and injustice, picked up on Luxon’s poem.
She went on to become a Tear Fund Youth Ambassador focused on modern slavery.
Luxon travelled with Tearfund to Nepal and Thailand to learn more about sex trafficking in those countries.
In 2019, she beat out hundreds of other global applicants to receive the Zonta International Young Women in Public Affairs Club Award.
That same year she gained an ATCL Diploma with distinction in public speaking and communications from London’s Trinity College — is it early prep for a career in politics herself one day? The year previously, Luxon received distinctions in speech and drama, where it is understood an assessor came to New Zealand to grade.
Meanwhile, brother William has worked as an international flight attendant. He took a break to finish a degree in marketing and international business.
Hart’s grandson working for the Mowbray family
Miller Hawkesby, the eldest grandson of New Zealand’s second richest family, the Harts, is now working for the country’s wealthiest family, the Mowbray brothers.
Hawkesby, the eldest son of Gretchen and Duncan Hawkesby and grandson of Graeme Hart, is working as a sales analyst at Nick and Mat’s rapidly growing consumer arm of their business, Zuru Edge in Minnesota, in the US.
The Mowbrays are lucky to have Hawkesby. He was the head prefect at Auckland Grammar, where he was respected for his rowing skills, volunteering, and love of skiing.
A source at Zuru tells Society Insider Hawkesby is “super enthusiastic and has a great attitude”.
Last June, Hawkesby’s parents, youngest brother Dylan, his grandparents and uncle Harry Hart and his fiancée, Australian heiress Cartier Lee, stood proudly alongside him as he graduated from world-leading Ivy League college Dartmouth in Hanover, New Hampshire.
He gained a Bachelor of Arts in economics, history, politics, and philosophy with a double major.
During his studies, he interned at two Illinois firms, packaging firm Pactiv Evergreen Inc and leading household products business Reynolds Consumer Products.
In 2023 Hawkesby got a taste for Zuru, when he interned in business development at Zuru Toys in Auckland.
Last August, Hawkesby joined the Mowbray’s Zuru Edge team where he will be part of one of the fastest-growing companies in the world, which prides itself on disrupting the fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) industry worldwide, from products as diverse as beauty, health through to petcare.
Acting dynasty lives on
She’s already following in her older sister, mother and grandmother’s footsteps with acting.
Now rising star Davida McKenzie, 18, will have even more time to spend on her career after completing her final year at Wellington’s prestigious Samuel Marsden Collegiate School.
She marked her final year by attending the school’s leavers’ ball held at Te Papa in Wellington last month, posing beforehand with her legendary grandmother Dame Kate Harcourt.
Her mother, acclaimed actress and acting coach to some of the world’s biggest stars, Dame Miranda Harcourt, posted the picture, taken by photographer Neil Mackenzie, to Instagram.
It was a full circle moment — Mackenzie took photos for a New Zealand Woman’s Weekly shoot of Dame Kate, Dame Miranda and baby Davida 18 years ago.
Throughout her time at the top private school in Karori, Davida — sister of acting sensation Thomasin — has appeared in the TV comedy, Mean Mums and had the lead role in a couple of short films, Turtle-Bank Hustler, directed by Steve McGillen and Bottle Money by Rebekah Tyler.
In film, Davida has worked with a variety of acclaimed talent, including New Zealand directors Jane Campion, and Vincent Ward, and international heavyweights Luc Besson and Camille Griffin. Her performance in Besson and Griffin’s 2020 movie Silent Night, alongside Keira Knightley and Lily-Rose Depp, was highly acclaimed.
Last year, she had a starring role in The Speedway Murders, which follows the unsolved “Burger Chef Murders” of 1978 that claimed the lives of four teenagers in Speedway, Indiana.
She is also said to have worked with Kiwi director Taika Waititi when he filmed the upcoming Klara in the Sun in Queenstown and Auckland earlier this year.
Last month she was in Auckland to star in the short film Our Party, produced by Jill Macnab, and directed by Joshua Prendeville.
The Honey King pollinating sport and entertainment
This year event organisers and sporting bodies will be eager for the attention of the Honey King of New Zealand, Matthew Pringle.
You would understand why if you are at the tennis at the ASB Classic over the first two weeks of this year.
The extremely private Pringle is the son of New Zealand’s wealthiest woman, Lynette Erceg, and was stepson to the late liquor entrepreneur Michael Erceg, who died in a helicopter accident in 2006. Lynette Erceg has a reported wealth of more than $1.8 billion.
One of Pringle’s honey companies, Manuka Doctor, has taken over as the naming rights sponsor for the Stanley Street Tennis Arena.
Previously the ASB Tennis Arena, the significant 10-year deal marks the 3000-seat venue’s first name change in almost 40 years. It is now called the Manuka Doctor Arena.
Manuka Doctor also sponsored The Road to ASB, an event for young Kiwi tennis players.
Manuka Doctor is said to earn more than $60 million in revenue a year. Its sister company is Manuka Pharm.
Over the past year, Pringle and his honey firms have made a sweet splash of an estimated hundreds of thousands of dollars on sport and music.
Manuka Doctor was the official honey partner of the New Zealand Olympic Team for the 2024 Paris Olympic Games.
Last year, Manuka Pharm was the naming rights sponsor of Synthony in the Domain and will do the same this year.
Synthony’s parent company Duco Events, which represents boxers Joseph Parker and David Nyika, both enjoy support from Manuka Doctor.
It is understood Synthony’s worldwide growth will be helped by Manuka Pharm throughout Australia, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, and Mexico.
Last year it was reported Pringle bought a 3% stake in the New Zealand Breakers.
Event man in action
Just over four years ago, Podis founder and director Nick Randell, had a vision of a new era in sports promotions, creating partnerships in media and entertainment.
Last month, Podis held the third annual TAB Chasing the Fox, the golfing experience where New Zealand’s best male golfer Ryan Fox takes on teams of Kiwi icons from various fields varying, from sports, media and politics.
It was a surprise ratings hit for TVNZ1, with an estimated viewership of nearly 700,000, which is understood to have been more than the viewership TVNZ1 had for last year’s Superbowl.
Randell, 32, attended Kings College and the University of Auckland, where he studied a Bachelor of Commerce in marketing and international business.
He spent five years in London, fine-tuning his skills at Havas Media Network, before returning to New Zealand, utilising his network, and starting Podis.
His business began with the staging of regular televised Friday Night Fight boxing events at SkyCity and the Auckland Museum. In boxing, Randell’s goal has been to identify and nurture New Zealand’s most promising boxing talent to reach new audiences and provide opportunities, similar to what Randell hopes to do with golf.
This year, Podis is expanding its offering into the music realm.
Starting on January 25, they are introducing Centre Court Sounds month to the Manuka Doctor Tennis Arena at Stanley Street.
Instead of watching tennis, the arena will be transformed into the ultimate live music experience complete with a 360-degree stage.
The event will be headlined by one of New Zealand’s fastest-growing live bands, The Leisure Collective, fresh off a sell-out US tour.
As well as GA tickets, the arena’s 80 corporate boxes will be used as a VIP offering for punters who want a more chilled-out experience.
The boxes will replicate the offerings at the ASB Classic, with Champagne, chilly bin and food service.
Watch this space — we hear among the Podis calendar of events this year, there is word that another music event may pop up.
An even bigger year for Jessica McCormack
This year Jessica McCormack’s London-based diamond jewellery brand will skip the Atlantic and begin huge expansion plans in New York.
McCormack, who started her business 16 years ago, has two standalone stores in London, a flagship townhouse on Carlos Place in Mayfair, and a 120 sq m store on Sloane Street that opened in late 2022, with neighbours that include Tiffany & Co.
McCormack will move onto the Manhattan neighbourhood of the famous Tiffany & Co — the nearly 200-year-old luxury New York-based jewellery brand — when she opens her first American store at 743 Madison Avenue.
In January last year, it was reported McCormack had tripled the size of her business in the past three years, with a turnover of just over $60 million.
Last year, McCormack, 44, announced Hollywood star Zoë Kravitz as her first official global brand ambassador and announced a new chief executive in Leonie Brantberg, previously Burberry’s head of strategy, to steer the brand’s further growth.
In addition to the new flagship store on Madison Ave, the company plans to add about 10 stores over the next few years. Roughly a third will be in the States and the company is said to be exploring locations in the Middle East and Asia. Late last year, McCormack was doing trunk showings in Los Angeles, so a Beverly Hills store is surely on the cards.
McCormack has two children with grocery delivery entrepreneur Douglas Morton and looks to still have her focus on London.
This year she will add a third store in the city with a concession on Harrod’s ground floor, near to French luxury jewellery brand Cartier.
Dynasty of bling
Brothers Sam, Cory and Jack Partridge work with some of the world’s most coveted luxury brands such as Cartier, Rolex and Patek Philippe.
They are the latest family members working in the sixth-generational business of Partridge Jewellers, which started in the 1800s and now has eight stores throughout New Zealand.
The brothers stepped into the limelight at a glitzy gala at Auckland’s War Memorial Museum last November to toast generations of Partridge, old and new, at the 160th birthday of their business.
Sam manages Partridge’s Rolex-Patek Philippe store in downtown Auckland, and Cory only recently made his entrance into the business after working in London. Their younger brother, Jack, does digital marketing for the family business and also has a full-time job as a strategist at PwC and their sister Nikki has also worked in the business.
Fresh out of high school, their father Grant started full-time on the shop floor at the age of 16 in 1976, having grown up working with his dad in the school holidays.
The original Partridge to carry the family name, James, opened the first Partridge store in England in 1864 and within a decade started the business in Timaru, later opening a store in Christchurch.
It was the fifth generation that saw Grant bring offerings of the world’s most famous luxury brands and exclusive deals with the likes of diamond corporation De Beers.
Raised in Wellington, Sam, Jack and Cory have made sure they keep things sparkling at Partridge and have armed themselves with impressive degrees, between them covering, marketing, commerce, information systems, international business, law and finance.
After generations of hard work and huge success, Grant and his sons, who have always paid it back to the community, are now doing so in an official way. Last year they launched the Partridge Family Foundation Trust with a focus on a laureate programme with an initial focal point on health sciences.
The multitalented performer
She appears to be able to do it all.
Greta van den Brink, 25,is a stunt woman, actress, singer-songwriter, artist and accomplished polo player.
The Karaka-based rich-lister van den Brink family are pioneers in the New Zealand poultry market, with an estimated wealth of more than $400m.
Over the past four years, van den Brink has had stunt jobs on the productions of Cowboy Bebop, Sweet Tooth, Evil Dead Rise and The Rings of Power.
When van den Brink worked stunts for Lisa Kudrow in Taika Waititi’s Time Bandits, the stunt video she posted on her Instagram of her falling through a sand trap, had more than 6 million views.
Last year, it was van den Brink’s time to shine in front of the camera on Netflix’s Australian cattle baron blockbuster series Territory.
Last July, New Zealand acting legend Sara Wiseman told Society Insider that Greta was a graduate of The Actors’ Program, which Wiseman co-founded.
“It was wonderful to be working alongside Greta and seeing her absolutely shine in her role.”
Last year, van den Brink launched her debut single Road To Hell in November, followed by her second song Swimming On A Spoon. We are told the singer-songwriter created the artwork for the album.
Sonically, it is described as having influences from artists such as Billie Eilish, and early Maggie Rogers, with the storytelling of Lana Del Rey.
Van den Brink’s father Tony is president of the Auckland Polo Club and her mother Christine is an established horsewoman and clothing designer.
Ahead of playing in the Urban Polo last summer, van den Brink told Society Insider that polo is a special sport in which her whole family is involved.
Fashionably LA
Sleepyhead heiress Cameo Turner is living her fashionable Californian dream as the content coordinator for Los Angeles-based women’s clothing label, Show Me Your Mumu.
The brand has dressed famous fans such as Beyoncé, Kendall Jenner and Alessandra Ambrosio.
Through social media campaigns, Turner, 27, helps steer the tastes of a community of “Mumu girls”, many of whom have Mumu in their Instagram handles.
Staying on the zeitgeist of popular culture, Turner juggles a plethora of clothing, brands, styles and themes.
The fabulously fun brand started by Cologne Trude and Cammy Miller, is an E-commerce platform that has grown exponentially since launching in 2010.
Content creation has been key to the growing success of SMYM, and if not creating and coordinating the content, Turner is often featured within it.
It’s a smart career turn for Turner, who studied journalism and briefly worked for NZME, predominantly in the Herald’s social media team, and also worked with Remix magazine creating content.
During her time in media, Turner also started her own women’s knitwear business.
The daughter of Sleepyhead’s Craig Turner and wife Cara Pollock Turner follows her mother’s side of the family in fashion. Her grandfather Gordon Pollock was part of the famous New Zealand fabric and haberdashery duo Barker & Pollock.
Craig and his brother Graeme have a combined wealth of $175m.
Turner, who has travelled the world and experienced the world’s A-List spots, always had her eyes set on the US, and something tells us, after one year with the brand Show Me Your Mumu, she is only just getting started.
Kiwi influencers' new life in Dubai
In November, leading Kiwi social media influencers Sarah Harris and Joshua Williams left Auckland for Dubai to take up opportunities in one of the fastest-growing cities in the world.
The couple, both 30, with well over 2 million followers between them (Harris 2.6m, Williams 115k) say they are vibing with the energy of Dubai and love living in a penthouse in Barsha Heights, which is very close and central to the most popular areas of the city.
Their apartment block is next to the Dubai Marina and they have a view of downtown and across to the famous Palm Jumeirah.
They have been working on new business ventures, which they say they will be ready to announce soon, and have been spending their weeks working, hitting the gym, and the pool, going to events and eating a lot of very expensive food at the city’s best restaurants and beach clubs.
In the five weeks, they have been in Dubai, Harris and Williams say they have enjoyed networking with very successful people.
Last month, they mingled with some of the biggest celebrities in the world at the Formula 1 in Abu Dhabi and had a surreal experience partying with Topboy star Micheal Ward and English rapper and singer Tinie Tempah afterwards at the F1 afterparty, held at Bagatelle in the W hotel.
After spending his birthday last January in Dubai, Williams came home, and the couple sold some property, sold their watch and jewellery business and began the process of forming a new company in Dubai.
Ricardo Simich has been with the Herald since 2008 where he contributed to The Business Insider. In 2012 he took over Spy at the Herald on Sunday, which has since evolved into Society Insider. The weekly column gives a glimpse into the worlds of the rich and famous.