Business Hall of Fame: Kiwi entrepreneurs honoured

Saturday, 2 April 2022

The country’s richest man, an international fitness empire and an innovative race car driver are among this year’s laureates to the New Zealand Business Hall of Fame.

Seven individual and family entrepreneurs will join the Business Hall of Fame this year, an award that celebrates the achievements of New Zealand business leaders who have made a significant contribution to the social and economic development of the country.

The awards were set up by The Young Enterprise Trust, a charity that seeks to inspire students and support business education in schools.

Graeme Hart

From unlikely beginnings, lacking both formal education and capital, Hart has built New Zealand’s largest private business, Rank Group.

Commerce has always been part of Hart’s DNA and within a short period of leaving school he was self-employed driving tow trucks. He soon expanded to other ventures and developed a straightforward model focused on acquiring quality businesses using leverage, and enhanced their performance both operationally and by acquisitions to build groups that were leaders within their market sectors.

Hart developed the largest printing and stationery company in New Zealand and Australia, the largest food group in the region, and a global packaging and consumer products group.

Les, Jackie and Phillip Mills

The Les Mills fitness business was started by Les and Colleen Mills, who both came from an athletic background, having represented New Zealand at the Olympics and Commonwealth Games.

The family’s fitness empire was started from their garage where they operated the Auckland Weightlifting Association gym. As word got out and demand increased, they started Les Mills World of Fitness in Victoria St, Auckland in 1968.

The business expanded and later floated on the stock exchange. The couple’s son Phillip Mills, himself a Commonwealth Games athlete, regained control of the business following the sharemarket crash in 1987. Phillip and his wife Jackie developed Les Mills Bodypump, which became the biggest branded exercise programme in the world, and launched Les Mills International, a global network of clubs licensing Les Mills programmes, supported by accredited trainers and instructors.

Ulu Aiono

Born in Samoa, Uluomatootua (Ulu) Saulaulu Aiono was inspired after seeing the country’s first programmable calculator in a Dunedin electronics shop window. He borrowed the calculator, programmed it, and changed his degree plans from medicine. He was New Zealand’s first Pacific Islander with a Bachelor of Computer Science, and was also the first to complete an MBA.

Aiono founded enterprise resource planning software company Cogita, growing it into the largest business in its niche in the world. In 2012 Cogita was sold to Silicon Valley company Epicor. He supports many charitable causes, serves on educational bodies, and invests, advises, and coaches start-ups.

Greg Tomlinson

Tomlinson has built many businesses, equipping them with infrastructure and scaling them to become meaningful assets that add value to New Zealand.

Entrepreneurial by spirit, the 16-year-old apprentice aircraft engineer spotted an opportunity in mussel farming. He convinced the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries to grant an experimental licence and built a fast-growing aquaculture business in Marlborough.

A lack of capital stymied his expansion plans, so he switched to property investment, purchasing his first home and subdividing his first section at 19. This quickly escalated into a thriving spec house business, which developed into retirement home business Oceania Healthcare.

Tomlinson also helped grow the small Marlborough wine processing business Indevin into the country’s largest wine business, form Heartland Bank, and animal pharmaceutical company Argenta.

Pania Tyson-Nathan

Having owned and grown up in business with her parents in the Hawke’s Bay, Tyson-Nathan moved to local and then central government during the 1990s, gaining an appreciation for the impact of public policy. Since 2011, she has served as chief executive of New Zealand Māori Tourism.

Tyson-Nathan has contributed to Māori economic development, focusing on the unique and nuanced opportunities that Māori contribute to tourism and trade, domestically and internationally. She has also held governance positions including Ngati Kahungunu Asset Holding Company and He Kai kei aku ringa (the Māori Economic Advisory board).

Bruce McLaren

The late Bruce McLaren took his motorsport dream overseas to become one of the most successful international drivers, race car designers and team owners.

In 1963, he founded the Bruce McLaren Motor Racing Team, which remains in the Formula One World Championship as McLaren Racing.

McLaren won his fourth F1 Grand Prix racing his own McLaren car in 1968, achieving the team's first F1 Grand Prix win.

Charles and Jessie Begg

The late Charles and Jessie Begg were the co-founders of Begg’s, a music retailing business. Established in 1861, the business expanded from its Dunedin base until its branches covered the country, providing New Zealanders with instruments and accessories, and publishing New Zealand compositions, including the national anthem, God defend New Zealand.

Begg’s served as a music advocate for more than 100 years, bringing overseas artists to New Zealand and supporting every area of musical activity. As one commentator observed in 1943 “the story of music in New Zealand is the history of Begg’s”.