My Story

Business is in my blood. I grew up in my family’s stevedoring company — a fourth-generation legacy that taught me both the pride and the pressure of ownership. After completing a BCom at Auckland University and working with Sir Colin Giltrap’s Mercedes-Benz arm, I joined the family business for five years. Not long after leaving, my father sold the business — a pivotal moment that showed me the reality of succession, timing and hard decisions.

I went on to create my own ventures. In 2002 I launched Co-Pilot®, helping businesses sharpen marketing & sales strategy. In 2006 I co-founded GrownUps®, which became New Zealand’s leading lifestyle platform for the 50+ demographic. At its peak it reached 200,000 monthly visitors, 160,000 members and published more than 10,000 articles. After years of tough negotiations and multiple shareholding changes with Sentinel (now part of Heartland) and Yellow, we sold GrownUps in 2016 to Cigna (now Chubb), a Fortune 500 company, following an intense nine-month due diligence process.

Since then, I’ve returned to Co-Pilot®, working alongside more than 150 owners, executives and partners across industries from healthcare, travel, technology, e-commerce, trades, hospitality and construction to professional services firms. The common thread? Helping leaders cut through complexity, ease the loneliness of leadership and prepare their businesses — and themselves — to be exit-ready anytime.

My Values

I believe the best businesses are built on strong principles:

• Trust → treating your business as if it were my own
• Integrity → straight talk, no hidden agendas
• Accountability → standing beside you to deliver outcomes
• Legacy → not just financial value, but the impact you leave through people and relationships