It’s that time again - the annual EY Entrepreneur of the Year awards. Brendan Manning profiles the first group of finalists.
This year the 17 contenders come from backgrounds ranging from childcare to digital games development.
They will appear before an independent judging panel on August 18, competing for the top slot in one of five categories: products, services, technology and emerging industries, young and master.
The category winners will be announced on August 21 and will again face the judges in October to choose a winner who will go on to represent New Zealand at the EY World Entrepreneur of the Year contest in Monaco next June.
With a career spanning horticulture, meat processing and software development, you could argue that Wayne Wright has done it all.
However he is best known for developing the early childcare business Kidicorp, now branded as Best Start.
The operation, founded in 1996 by Wright with his wife Chloe, now employs 4370 staff in 256 centres, looking after 15,720 children.
This year ownership of the business was transferred to registered charity the Wright Family Foundation. By 2020, Wright says, he wants to be providing places for 20,000 children, as well as running 5000 licensed home-based education and care places.
"It took 15 years of consistent application to convince people the driver behind the enterprise was making a difference to children's lives rather than financial reward."
He credits his time as a Queen's Scout - where he learned about collaboration, taking risks and assuming responsibility - and the stability of his wife, five children and six grandchildren, as the pillars of his success.
Despite the honour of being recognised for his successes, Wright concedes, "I've never put my name forward for anything before, so I'm a little apprehensive".
Carmen Vicelich
Data Insight founder Carmen Vicelich.
A self-confessed "data geek", Vicelich launched Data Insight in 2013, based on what she says was a passion to create results through data.
The recognition of data analytics in the success of Barack Obama's presidential campaigns showed a growing appreciation for data worldwide, she says.
"It's wonderful now to see data finally getting to the top table and being seen as a game-changing asset." With clients including Spark, BMW, McDonald's and Pumpkin Patch, as well as financial institutions and insurance companies, the business uses data to deliver insights to more than 40 companies, locally and overseas, she says.
Vicelich says that having worked with data for the past 14 years, "I was a data geek long before it became cool".
"In New Zealand, I was frustrated by the lack of innovation in property data and in the valuation space, so I was driven to deliver more and bring innovation to a market that had a single supplier and no choice."
Daniel Gudsell
Abodo Wood marketing director Daniel Gudsell.
Fresh out of Waikato University, Gudsell was working for a building material exporter in Auckland when he became disillusioned with how much exterior timber came from non-renewable sources, and was treated with toxic chemicals.
"Too many building materials used in our homes are either toxic or unsustainable," Gudsell says.
"I sort of fell into wood to be honest. I recognised that the global marketplace for building materials was beginning to be increasingly dominated by Asian manufacturers, so I should focus on something that NZ has a natural advantage in." So in 2002, at 26, he quit to start Abodo Wood from the Kingsland warehouse that doubled as his home.
"The warehouse was out the back of a gay dance studio. Needless to say, a few of my first customers got the shock of their lives."
The company designs and manufactures healthier wood products, sourcing its raw materials domestically from Forest Stewardship Council certified plantation forests.
"Our vision is to create beautiful exterior timber products that are good for people and the environment," he says.
"NZ's wood product industry is ready for innovation - we are simply exporting too many raw logs."
John-Daniel Trask
John-Daniel Trask, founder of SaaS platform Mindscape.
Trask says he was just 9 when he taught himself to write software.
A little later, in early 2007, the SaaS [Software as a Service] developer started Mindscape with business partner Jeremy Boyd, after experiencing what he describes as the poor quality of software tooling and knowing it could be done better.
His entrepreneurial spirit was stoked by running a PC repair business while studying for a Bachelor of Information Science at Massey University, which then led to working as a software developer at Wellington IT services company Intergen.
The start-up capital for Mindscape came in the form of a $250,000 contract from Microsoft New Zealand, which funded the development of crash reporting product Raygun - a name which Mindscape is now adopting for the business.
"We build software for teams who want to create amazing software," he says.
Raygun is moving beyond solely crash reporting, towards a product suite which gives clients real-time insight into the health of their software, he says.
"It's an exciting time and the company is growing strongly while also helping tens of thousands of users in more than 100 countries."
John Wikstrom
Magic Memories founder John Wikstrom.
Wikstrom's "eureka moment" came when he was working in sales and marketing at Queenstown newspaper Mountain Scene.
It was 1994, and he says seeing the frustration of customers at tourism attractions who wanted to get a photo of their experience sparked the idea for his business, Magic Memories.
"As a keen marketer I am always looking for the pain points in any process - and this one was obvious.
"Queues were long, the process required two additional trips, an hour apart, back to the shop, and the product was simply handed out as a photo in a brown paper bag.
"Both Stu [business partner Stuart Norris] and I saw the gap immediately, and it was customer service first, and improved quality of product second."
With that defining ethos cemented, Magic Memories was then born.
The business now offers tailored photography packages to the guests of 100-plus tourism attractions throughout Asia, Europe, North America, Australia and New Zealand, and is aiming for annual turnover of $250 million by 2020.
