Who got that job?

Job title: Chief executive officer, Wine Marlborough.

Michelle Beckett, 31, was in London as part of a three-month holiday when a friend in New Zealand tipped her off about the job.

It was ideal, says Aucklander Beckett: "The Marlborough wine industry is a progressive, dynamic and positive industry."

Wine Marlborough is owned by grape growers and winemakers to promote their region's wines. It's big business, with the area producing 50 per cent of this country's wine, much of it exported.

Becket says it aims to promote "communication, education and co-operation from the vineyard to the wine glass".

Beckett has a University of Auckland degree in foreign languages and marketing. Her career has been in marketing, events management, sponsorship and public relations. She has worked for, or acted as consultant to, Ferrari, the Holden racing team and the New Zealand Warbirds. She was a manager of the Baltimore stopover of the Whitbread round-the-world yacht race in 1998.

For the past three years she has led the Christchurch City Council events team, which had a budget of more than $2 million and a mandate to organise more than 400 events a year.

Already in the six weeks Beckett has led Wine Marlborough, the company has scored a coup with the help of Trade New Zealand: Marlborough wines will be the only ones on offer at the Hong Kong Fashion Week in mid-January.

And Beckett's favourite wine? "For a number of years I've been partial to Marlborough sauvignon blanc - so it's the perfect job."