World changing Kiwi

“When I was younger, higher education felt like one of those things that other people did. My family worked on the land and none of them had pursued a formal education. School was something you did until you could leave.”

Once she finished sixth form, leave was exactly what Frances did, jumping on a plane to London, determined to see the world and discover what she was passionate about.

“I landed in London in the late 80’s and was literally in awe, there was so much technology that I had never seen and never used. Computers were just big beige boxes on desks, with basic operating systems and dot matrix printers, but I could tell it was the beginning of something and I could see it evolving and that was really exciting to me.”

Frances spent several years in Europe before returning to New Zealand in the mid 90’s just as the age of the internet was really beginning to take hold.

“When I arrived home the internet was a thing, multimedia and CD-ROMs were emerging and I was really confronted by the reality that most Kiwi weren’t leaning into this new technology, they weren’t excited about it. There were a few cowboys creating websites but that was it. I became really interested in why people weren’t jumping on board to the new digital era, as for me the tech was a given, it was understanding the education side of things that really drove my interest.”

One of the Kiwis interested in learning about this technology was Frances’ younger brother, who wanted to study multimedia after he left school. However, with no university courses or institutes focused on the subject, he struggled to find somewhere to learn.

This gap in the market prompted Frances to join forces with her mother to create a design institute, aimed at getting people on board with emerging technology.

“Forming the Media Design School was a complete deviation for both of us. When I think about it now, it was quite mad, we were not entrepreneurs or tech experts, but off we went, and created a creative technology training institute and somehow it worked. It was very hard and the technology was very expensive and it was changing so rapidly and keeping up really took some work to stay in step with how fast the industry was moving. I remember the very first student who produced a 5MB animation file and we were like, what do we do with this? We can’t leave it on the computer because it’s hogging all the space and all the memory. But to buy an external drive for 5MBs at that time, was over $300. We had hundreds of students and I remember thinking, ‘what will we do with all these huge files?”

“At that stage the course was really focused on animation, visual effects and game development. Media Design School was acquired by an international university group who replicated the institute to integrate the concept into other universities around the world. The first place I took it was into San Diego and then Santa Fe and then Milan. And then we went to Malaysia and then we just got into Australia as I was leaving so it became a really global programme.”

This globalisation of her product saw Frances immersed in the global University environment and for the first time she started to gain a much broader understanding of how higher learning was lagging behind the needs of industry.

“In 2013 I opened The Mind Lab. My view was if we could teach teachers how to teach kids things like robotics and coding and get them to build websites and get them to do little animations and things that actually we could contextualise education in the digital world. These teachers would then teach kids and then our job would be done. The students were so engaged, and the teachers were just mind-blown by how engaged their students were. We then started teaching teachers through a post graduate program in digital and collaborative learning, and it really just grew from there.”

When Frances launched Mind Lab critics told her she would be unlikely to get more than 20 teachers on board, given the time commitments and financial pressure. A partnership with the Next Foundation helped lower the cost barrier and within three weeks of opening 300 teachers had signed up.

“We suddenly realised that we were really onto something. So for the next few years, we really focused on teaching teachers right across the country. We would fly a team in and set up a local high school and host other teachers from teh region. At one point we were operating in twenty-two sites every single week from Gore to Kaitaia. The programme just kept growing and to date we have had more than 7,000 teachers complete the course.”

The success of Mind Lab made Frances realise there was a growing group of so called “middle aged” people who were either in a role they felt had stagnated, or they had been overlooked for promotion. The options for reskilling for these professionals was so limited, so Tech Futures Lab was born.

“University is traditionally geared towards younger people, even in a post grad environment and so we started to think, what if we could create an environment designed for people in the 35 to 55 age group? That led us to launch a series of innovative learning programmes which build relevant skills and capabilities to match the requirements of our constantly changing world. The newly named academyEX redefines learning and professional development and allows adults to get involved with learning again in areas of sustainability, leadership, technological disruption and education.

Frances has recently partnered with a private equity firm from Sydney and is introducing academyEX into Australia. She says her ideal world is one where it’s as normal to be studying and learning in your 50s as it is in your 20s.

“I’ve never yet met someone who’s regretted coming back to education, It’s always one of those things, that when people get into it, they are like, Wow, my whole world just changed, I’m having conversations I haven’t had for such a long time, I’m interested, I’m excited about the world. People get into a bit of a rut sometimes and something like this can really bring them out.”

For Frances, learning is the key to knowledge and knowledge is the key to success. She believes that we all have a responsibility to keep learning.

“Knowledge is changing and improving every day as we get better insights, better data points. If you were a scientist from 20 years ago and you were still trading on the same knowledge you’d be irrelevant, and business is no different. Ethically and morally as business advisors and leaders and entrepreneurs, we need to be up to speed. It’s your prerogative to take the time and make sure you have the best information especially when you are using that information to make decisions on behalf of other people.”

If you are interested in learning more about academyEX visit their website here

Previously a youth worker, Jay has worked with kids for most of his life and has seen first hand the impacts of New Zealand’s mental wellbeing crisis. However, it wasn’t until he travelled to the UK in 2018 that he started to really question why.

“People I met overseas couldn’t understand how living on a beautiful, isolated island at the bottom of the world could hold such dark issues with mental wellbeing. I told them that we have one of the highest suicide rates in the world and that 25% of our young people are depressed, anxious and fatigued. They didn’t understand how that could add up. It made me angry about the state of our nation, I knew it was wrong, and I knew I had to do something about it.”

Jay started having some serious conversations about tall poppy syndrome with some of those who experience it most frequently – Kiwi sporting stars and kids in schools.

“I went and surveyed 500 teenagers and asked them what would make them most comfortable, if I put them down and called them an idiot, or if I gave them a compliment. Seven out of 10 chose the insult, I just remember thinking how broken that was. I also spoke to some of our sporting elite like Gold winning Winter X Games athlete Jossi Wells who told me a big part of the reason he spends so much time offshore is to remove himself from the criticism he receives in New Zealand, former All Blacks Coach Steve Hanson feels tall poppy syndrome is one of the most critical conversations we need to have as a nation, and UFC middleweight champion Israel Adesanya is so passionate about it he called the phenomenon out during his Sportsman of the Year speech at the 2019 Halberg Awards.”

**Jay Geldard and Kiwi actor/comedian Chris Parker**

And it’s not just kids and famous Kiwi, Jay says he’s also spoken to a number of returnees who come home to New Zealand and feel trapped by the culture.

“Kiwi who come home say they feel like they have to downplay everything they have achieved. Some even consider not coming home because of it. That has to change, we should be creating an environment where, when New Zealanders come home, we celebrate them representing us on the world stage.”

To support his work Jay has got some big names on board including top Neuroscience Educator Nathan Wallis who says tall poppy syndrome is stopping people from becoming their best.

“Tall poppy syndrome is harmful, because kids get this idea that it’s not okay to dream big. And I think that’s that culture kicking in, telling them you’re not supposed to stand out above your peers. Dreaming is just such a basis of everything we achieve, you achieve what you dream for, and if you dream mediocre because you have been taught by everybody else that that’s what you are supposed to do then you achieve mediocre. So many people could be successful if we didn’t have this culture that told them, “no you can’t.”

E Tū Tāngata became a stand-alone charity in 2023 and Jay says they have already made significant strides, transforming the lives of Kiwi youth and adults alike by challenging the culture through modules and workshops in schools and organisations.

A school principal working with the E Tū Tāngata organisation recently shared that a troubled student, after being told he was valuable during a tense moment, expressed appreciation for the school seeing his value even when angry. Since working with the charity that same school has seen attendance rates rise from 40% to 90%.

At another school a teacher began asking her students to write down what part of themselves they were proud of each day, the notes were placed on the classroom wall as a reminder. The teacher told Jay one of her students continues this practice in her bedroom at home and has a wall full of notes that remind her of her value everyday.

“These are just a couple of examples of us tackling tall poppy syndrome, and it’s proof it’s working. It’s working for teachers and students, and that impact filters out to others. We have nothing to lose by telling people they have value, because we’ve spent generations not doing it.”

If you’d like to find out more about E Tū Tāngata and support the work they do you can visit their website.

In 2022, Tenby was watching television, horrified as Russian troops poured over the border from Belarus. Having recently overcome cancer, the scenes struck a chord with Tenby, and he found himself wanting to do something significant to help.

“I thought, ‘I’m not going to sit there this time’. There have been times when I wished I could take action and help in certain ways but I wasn’t able to due to my health or other commitments. But now, I knew I had the skills, health and time to really make a difference.”

With a background serving in the military as a colonel in the Royal New Zealand Infantry Regiment and having been the Mayor of Tauranga, Tenby felt impelled to use his previous experience to his advantage and decided to travel to Ukraine to properly understand the ways in which he could help.

**Tenby (third from left) and the team at his charity Kiwi K.A.R.E**

A burning desire to create real change

Upon entering Ukraine, it became immediately obvious to Tenby that the best way he could help was through humanitarian channels. Calling on friends and connections for support Tenby set up Kiwi K.A.R.E, and within months the organisation was operating exclusively in Ukraine’s Red Zones (the newly liberated areas and those towns and villages closest to the Russian adversaries), delivering humanitarian and medical aid directly to front line medical units, Red Zone hospitals and residents.

“Some of the Ukranians haven’t seen a doctor, nurse, or health professional in years. We forget the conflict has been going on in some form since 2014, so our work is a consequence of that, including conducting medical clinics in these towns and villages.”

One of Kiwi K.A.R.E’s most extensive projects is importing ambulances from New Zealand. Seven ambulances have now been sent to Ukraine with six being used by frontline medical units, while the seventh vehicle ‘Manaaki’ (caring), has been retained for the charity’s health outreach asset.

**Tenby and one of the ambulances imported from New Zealand**

“We have 16 ambulances in storage in Perth which we are hoping to ship over in May, this is currently being negotiated due to shipping issues in the Red Sea. We have also been in discussion with Fire and Emergency New Zealand about securing fire trucks which are in high demand in Ukraine.”

Along with securing emergency vehicles, Kiwi K.A.R.E also fund and manufacture wood burning stoves and water heaters, recycled from old electrical water boilers. Tenby says the old water boilers, donated from all over Ukraine, are dismantled and stripped down to access the internal tank and then transformed into cheap and effective wood burning stoves and water boilers.

“Throughout 2023 and 2024 we distributed around 2000 units and these were often described as lifesaving by those families who received them. The reality is with the destruction of water and power infrastructure, we need these stoves and heaters all year round because that’s all some people have got.”

Gifting ‘Yuri Bears’ to Ukrainian children

**Tenby gifting ‘Yuri Bears’ to children in Ukraine**

Another project stemmed from a call Tenby received from a senior executive at Ryman Healthcare who asked if Kiwi K.A.R.E would be interested in distributing ‘Yuri Bears’ – tiny teddy bears that are knitted by the residents of Ryman Healthcare’s rest homes in New Zealand and Australia.

“The employee told me she was interested in doing this because she and her husband had adopted a refugee from Chernobyl, a 12-year-old boy called Yuri, who lived with them for some time before eventually moving back to Ukraine. The idea of Yuri Bears is all about giving something to these kids who have lost everything.”

Tenby and his organisation managed to get a container of Yuri Bears shipped to Ukraine and they make sure to take the knitted bears with them on any missions they do – whether it’s delivering humanitarian aid, medical aid or facilitating evacuations.

Having been on the ground in Ukraine for months at a time and seeing with his own eyes the devastation of the conflict, Tenby says he couldn’t do what he does without the support of his wife Sharon and his kids, and he often has to remind himself that when he is back in New Zealand he is safe.

“I think family has been my biggest anchor of all, but I’ve also got a lot of experience serving in the military for a long time. Sometimes I experience cognitive dissonance, where I don’t know where I am for a second in time. That’s when I have to say to myself ‘I am in Tauranga in New Zealand and I am safe’ and remind myself how grateful we are for what we’ve got here in our country.”

If you would like to support the work of Kiwi K.A.R.E and help to fund vehicles, purchase supplies and equipment, donate what you are able here.

Palemia was offered his first job at Auckland’s Fullers360 while he was still in high school. He loved being at sea and went on to join the Royal New Zealand Navy as a marine engineer officer. Once he secured his merchant marine engineer licence, cruise ships became his next calling and that was where he met his Finnish wife.

Palemia joined his wife in Helsinki in 2008 and through a fellow Helsinki rugby team mate Palemia secured a role at ABB, a leading technology company in electrification and automation.

A challenge accepted

After spending several years in Europe, Palemia visited Auckland, where a conversation with Michael Eaglen, Co-founder and CEO of EV Maritime, and James Mullen, ABB New Zealand’s sales manager for process automation, revealed an exciting project involving electric ferries and the need for a charging system. It was a challenge Palemia wanted to solve – and they did so using his Kiwi ingenuity and a whiteboard.

“We just started sketching something up. It’s amazing what you can do when you get a bunch of people together and you’re bouncing ideas around. The job I’ve got is amazingly creative – I know that’s odd for an engineer to be saying, but we have a problem or a challenge, and we need to be creative to figure it out and solve it. One of the advantages we had with this charging system for these new ferries in Auckland is that it had never been done before. Being involved in a project where the standard did not exist, then also being back in Auckland where I worked on those routes as a high school student at Fullers360, felt like a full circle.”

A more eco-friendly future

Palemia says with hydro and geothermal electricity currently providing 87% of the country’s electricity needs each year, electric ferries just make more sense, and he adds it’s not only the environment that will benefit from this, but the overall customer experience.

“Once we get these boats in the water and people see how easy it is to charge them, it’s going to be really fun. It doesn’t make a lot of noise and it doesn’t have that diesel smell. Being on a fully electric ferry is a really weird experience – a lot of people don’t realise they have already left the port because there is no vibration or noise.

“The ability to travel into Matiatia Bay on Waiheke Island on a fully electric ferry, and really take in that beauty, just imagine being a tourist and that being your experience. That’s what we are going for. It’s been very cool to bring something that’s previously been European-centric to New Zealand.”

**A sneak peak at what these electric ferries will look like. Image credit: EV Maritime Auckland Transport**

Palemia says that ABB Marine & Ports has multiple ferry projects in the near to min-term, and not a single one of those ships will be built without batteries, which is set to change the ferry transport system worldwide. Expect to see these fully electric ferries changing Auckland’s water transport scene in 2025.

Josh Emett always wanted to be a chef. Brought up on a farm in rural Waikato, he was baking cakes at age six and loved fishing and hunting. He says his passion for cooking was fuelled by the wild produce around him and the desire to understand where it came from, how to use it and, most importantly, how to respect it.

“We had free reign in the pantry and the kitchen growing up, mum thought that would keep us out of trouble. We lived remotely on a farm and it was 20 minutes to the supermarket so we didn’t often buy all the food kids love like chips and biscuits. Instead, we learned to bake cakes, chocolate caramel slices, pavlova – you name it.”

His first job in a professional kitchen was at age 14 when he worked in a Hamilton retirement village washing dishes, setting up a food trolley and wheeling it down to a villa to serve 10 elderly women dinner.

From humble beginnings to Gordon Ramsay’s restaurants

Josh moved overseas in his early twenties, jumping between London and Melbourne where he worked in several restaurants under talented chefs. Eventually, he headed to the south of France to work as a chef on luxury yachts, saving enough money to move to London once again. Upon his return, Josh made the bold decision to ask British celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay for a job.

“I wanted to learn from and work under Gordon Ramsay so I rang the head chef at Restaurant Gordon Ramsay in Chelsea and he invited me to come in for a day. Gordon came and spoke to me and I told him what I wanted to do. The head chef asked me what position I wanted and I said ‘I’ll take what you’ve got’. At the time Gordon ran what was known as one of the most ferocious kitchens in the world but I knew I would gain so much from it.”

The humble Kiwi chef from rural Waikato joined Restaurant Gordon Ramsay in Chelsea as Senior Chef de Partie, working his way up the ranks in the kitchens of several of Ramsay’s restaurants before opening restaurants for Gordon Ramsay Holdings in New York, LA and Melbourne.

“I worked hideous hours for most of those years. It was full-noise and amazing. We were so focused on food and service. I spent a lot of my time in the dining room making sure the flow of food that comes from the kitchen and the style of service was aligned. I treated those businesses like my own, and Gordon encouraged me to do so.”

After 20 years of experimenting with European cooking styles Josh realised it was time to return home and explore New Zealand’s culinary scene. In 2012, Josh opened his first restaurant, Rātā, in Queenstown showcasing traditional New Zealand cultural traditions and local produce. His first Auckland restaurant, Onslow, allowed him to realise his dream of intertwining inspiration from Europe and Aotearoa.

“Coming back to New Zealand and opening restaurants here has been a real highlight of my career. Opening Onslow in 2020 during COVID and the opening of our most recent restaurant last year, Gilt Brasserie, are both really proud moments of doing something that has a really personal standpoint.”

Transitioning from chef to business owner

Josh says opening a restaurant is driven by more than just a love of cooking; it’s about a strong emotional connection to everything the business encompasses.

“A restaurant is not just a place to eat; it’s a performance, an experience, and a social hub that weaves people and communities together. But It’s also a terrifying ride, how will others perceive it? Will it survive? I love it when restaurants are humming – it’s high energy, bustling, and vibrant. In the industry, that’s what gives you a high. It’s a performance, there’s a lot of pressure. You are there to make people have a wonderful experience, but you can’t please everyone – which is often a good thing because you take feedback, do something with it and then improve.”

Pouring so much time, effort and love into something like opening a restaurant makes it difficult to relinquish control – especially as a business owner. Josh says transitioning from a chef to a business owner has its own unique challenges and that letting go is far from straightforward.

“You have to take a step back and allow your team to take over. Sometimes mistakes happen, but often people will excel when you give them the space to do that. Being open to change and upskilling yourself in managing people and how to be a great leader, how to manage a business, how to understand the finance… that’s the difficulty with restaurants, they are very complex businesses.”

Transforming Auckland’s neighbourhoods and communities

Josh’s goal with his restaurants is to grow New Zealand’s culinary scene to compete with great restaurants on an international scale and make it one Kiwi are proud of. But, even further, he wants to enhance Auckland’s vibrancy.

“Part of my responsibility is to build great restaurants in New Zealand, and Auckland specifically, because that is where we are focused. I want to continue to grow Auckland’s food scene and make the city a really vibrant place to live.

“When you live in a neighbourhood and someone opens a great local restaurant, everyone migrates to it. It starts to breathe life into areas and becomes a place that people go to socialise. They become those community hubs that when done well, people think ‘I live in the best area’. It completely changes the dynamic.”

And that’s exactly what Josh wants to achieve with his and Helen’s newest opening, Gilt Brasserie, a contemporary brasserie on Auckland’s Chancery Street. This area of Auckland bore the brunt of the pandemic, affecting several businesses and seeing the demise of a few restaurants because of it.

“Part of our work and our investment in that site is that we are going to reinvigorate that area of Auckland. There is already a great coffee shop on Chancery Street, a great bar, and we have just opened our restaurant. All of a sudden, it’s become a place to migrate towards.”

Josh highlights the impact of using the expertise and skills he acquired abroad in making his restaurants successful, and encourages aspiring individuals to extend their gaze beyond New Zealand.

“You have to be so deeply ingrained in the world of food – not just in New Zealand. You need to be in tune with what’s going on around the world, who’s doing what, who’s trying different techniques, how different businesses are being run and what equipment they are using. Food is constantly evolving.”

Christopher’s journey into perfumery was an unexpected detour from a conventional legal career at PwC in Wellington. His move to London led him through various unsatisfying roles in investment banking and after being made redundant, he applied for a part-time position in a luxury department store, thanks in part to a creatively adjusted CV.

“I had to stretch aspects of my CV to land the job because they wanted someone with experience working in a luxury department store. My parents have a chain of retail stores, but none of them are considered luxury.”

The birth of a business partnership

One day Christopher was covering the perfumery department when a gentleman came in to ask who he should talk to in order to get his product stocked. Seeing an opportunity Christopher decided to take a chance.

“I said, ‘I’ll tell you if you show me the product’. I was on my break, so we went across the road to a cafe, where he showed me his products, and after 20 minutes I had committed to investing my redundancy pay check into this little unknown candle fragrance brand called Diptyque.”

That man, Laurent Delafon, remains Christopher’s business partner to this day. Christopher and Laurent grew the Diptyque business for seven years before selling it to the Fisher family, owners of American fashion chain The Gap.

“That took our small business to a global juggernaut worth over $100 million in sales. I think we just happened to be in the right place at the right time when there wasn’t much competition. Most of the time we had no idea what we were doing.”

Christopher says Kiwi ingenuity enabled him to build the foundations of a successful business where top international brands like Tom Ford, Karl Lagerfeld and Gucci wanted Diptyque candles even after the duo had sold their business.

“I had no idea how to make these candles for them, but I said I would find out. At the time, Diptyque had a wonderful French perfumer Olivia Giacobetti, I rang her and said, ‘I know you make candles for Diptyque, can you help me make a candle for Tom Ford and Gucci?’

Thinking back to his childhood, Christopher says a story from his mum made him realise that perhaps perfume was written in the stars all along.

“When I was eight-years-old, every summer we would travel to a family friend’s farm in Nelson on a small rickety flight from our home in Wellington. We only needed to be at the airport 20 minutes before boarding, but I always asked to go much earlier so I could play in Duty Free. There wasn’t even a Duty Free for a Nelson flight, but my mum loves telling that story as she says I was always interested in the creativity of smells and bottles. I loved the glamour of it back then just like I do now.”

Fostering creative talent in young Kiwi

Christopher is immensely proud to be Kiwi, purposely weaving it into his work. He also has a love for the arts, especially creative writing.

“I look at how New Zealand creativity and Kiwi creators inspire my team to look at things differently too. It’s intrinsic and it’s the lifeblood of what I do. All my friends studied theatre at Victoria University with Taika Waititi, Brett Mckenzie, Jemaine Clement and Melanie Lynskey. I have this network of incredible Kiwi talent and I still can’t believe they are all household names now. I wanted to pull that together with everything I have been given in my life in London to build a writing award that will showcase young Kiwi writers, support them, and give them a pathway in a very difficult climate for arts funding, and then also provide them with pathways into Hollywood and London.”

This passion has seen Christopher set up an annual writing award with Wellington’s BATS Theatre, which takes the form of a paid writers residency open to anyone aged over 16 with a story to tell.

“To be able to get top creative performing arts venues directors, writers and practitioners in the UK reading a beautiful playwright by a 26-year-old from Newtown in Wellington is something I am so proud to help with. It’s my way of giving back and making sure that Kiwi talent continues to grow and shine.”

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