Personnel file: Leslie Preston

Full name: Leslie Sue Preston.

Date and place of birth: June 30, 1966, New York City.

Occupation: Founder and managing director of Ingenio Consulting, an 18-month-old management consultancy.

Residence: Ponsonby, Auckland.

Qualifications: Bachelor of arts, Franklin and Marshall College, Pennsylvania; MBA Stanford University.

Family: Married for almost 10 years to Stefan Preston. Two wonderful toddlers - a daughter, three, and a son, two.

How did you get into this line of work?

I started as a consultant with the Boston Consulting Group in Auckland almost 10 years ago.

Working at BCG was a natural extension after completing my MBA at Stanford. I loved the challenge and variety. However, I was often frustrated that I did not get the chance to work with the clients to execute the strategies.

So I joined one of my clients, BellSouth, and stayed there for five years. This enabled me to really get my hands dirty. I started Ingenio to blend the best of these worlds.

What is the biggest challenge facing your organisation?

Staying on the leading edge in business thinking, as we are a small professional services business, and focusing on keeping our consultancy pipeline filled, while also continuing to deliver high-quality work to our clients.

Business is based on personal relationships, word of mouth, and ultimately, delivery of quality outcomes.

What is your most high-profile achievement?

Overseeing the development and introduction of prepay mobile phone services into the New Zealand marketplace, at BellSouth.

What are your rules or mottos for hiring people?

Always hire the best people you can. You need people with great raw talent, people who are smart, streetwise, motivated, personable, and effective communicators.

You need to have people around you that take you well outside your comfort zone, or you will forever be constrained by your own limitations.

How would you describe your management style?

Hands-on. I like to get into the task, understand the nature of the business issue, and make sure the team is very clear on the approach and the end deliverables. People would say I am a bit of a perfectionist.

How do you describe your personality?

Extremely persistent and doggedly determined. Always willing to mount a good fight and stick up for my principles and beliefs.

What books are you reading?

The one I am enjoying the most is Good to Great, by Jim Collins (HarperCollins). Jim was a professor while I was attending Stanford Business School.

If you could change one aspect of NZ business, what would it be?

The compliance costs in managing a small business. Business is challenging enough without the additional burdens of excessive paperwork, taxes, and overhang of tough penalties.

How do you relax?

There is nothing more relaxing than going for a nice walk on the beach - feeling the sand on your feet, listening to the waves crashing, inhaling the fresh sea breeze.

What are your top five values?

Values are key. My values and the values of my company are one and the same: integrity, people, lean-ness, quality and balance.

What's the key to managing stroppy staff?

People who get out of control are really reflecting the environment they are in. A culture and value system needs to be put in place that motivates people.

If you could live in another country, which would it be?

I am the reverse of the brain drain, and would not choose another country to live in. New Zealand is a great environment to live in. Even though my family are in the United States, it is not enough of a reason for me to now leave New Zealand.

What was the first lesson you learned in business?

The relationship between process and task has been a very important lesson to me. While task is important, process is almost always more important.

What's the best piece of advice anyone ever gave you?

Confidence is the key to success - I learned this from my mentor on my first job after university. It doesn't matter what you are thinking or feeling inside. As long as you come across confidently and portray yourself in a positive manner, people will believe you and follow your advice and actions.

What's the best investment you ever made - and the worst?

The best investment I have ever made is in my children. The worst would have to be investment in several dot coms. At the time, it seemed a really sensible thing to do.

What's the most reckless thing you have done in business?

I am a pretty conservative person, so I really don't do reckless things. Probably the most reckless occurred in November 1999, when I resigned from the role of general manager, marketing, from Vodafone without having another job to go to.