Leaders Getting Coffee with Bruce Cotterill

• Episode 42: Massey University Professor Emeritus, Paul Spoonley

  In Leaders Getting Coffee episode 42, our guest is Distinguished Professor Emeritus Paul Spoonley, of Massey University. Paul Spoonley is a career academic with a remarkable ability to explain complex matters in very straight-forward terms. But that straight forward manner is less surprising when we hear about someone who spent five years working in the freezing works,and later started writing his PhD thesis on that topic before abandoning it under pressure from the industry. And so a career in academia followed, and the independent thinker shows through in Spoonley’s discussion and in his attitude to the future of the country. If only the politicians would listen. Drawing heavily from his recent presentation entitled “The future of New Zealand: Demography as Desitny” Professor Spoonley conducts a wide-ranging discussion on the make-up of New Zealand and the challenges for our growing population. We learn that Auckland’s population is set to grow by up to 700,000 people in the next 13 years, and we discuss the implications of that growth for infrastructure, health services and education. Professor Spoonley discusses the reasons behind the most rapidly growing regions in the country. And we hear about how an ageing population at a time of declining fertility rates threatens the way of life we have come to enjoy. But there are solutions too, and plenty of advice for governments around the world who are grappling with immigration issues. Education, in particular, could become more relevant if greater access to apprenticeships was available and digital literacy more widely taught. This is a fascinating discussion, filled with insights from a man who has made the make-up of our societies his life’s work.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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• Episode 41: Principal of Harcourts Cooper & Co, Martin Cooper

  In Leaders Getting Coffee episode 41, our guest is real estate’s Martin Cooper, the principal of Harcourts Cooper & Co. Most will know him as the man on television shouting “the North Shore, what a great place to live.” But Martin Cooper’s story started in Queenstown where he grew up and where he admits to taking the magnificent landscape around him for granted. He was not the most committed student, but he enjoyed sports and the outdoors adventures that his natural surroundings offered. His father was a cabinet minister, and his work saw the family move to Mosgiel in Dunedin while Martin was at high school. Upon finishing school, and a couple of jobs that saw him away from home a lot, his desire to play senior rugby resulted in him returning to Dunedin and looking for a regular and local job. That search led him to real estate, a business naturally suited to his energetic and charismatic personality. He found it tough at first, but after three years, he decided it was to be his career. Despite the recession of the early 1990’s he established his own real estate business and, after a few tough years, learned that he was suited to recruiting, motivating and developing great people. Success followed in the Dunedin market, but Martin soon found it hard to resist the opportunities afforded by a bigger market and he moved to Auckland, intent on establishing himself and his business on the North Shore. Again, he found the early going tough, but he’d been there before. The result is Harcourts Cooper & Co, a 20 office, 480 person real estate business and a personal profile to match. Martin Cooper’s journey is an inspirational leadership story. On the Leaders Getting Coffee podcast, he talks to Bruce Cotterill about building resilience through the tough times, the importance of good people, and of putting a little bit of Disneyland into the aspirations of his team. He speaks openly about the pressures of keeping his business going through the Covid lockdowns and the toll of a recent complaints process. But the real value is in his view of how to be successful in a business that rewards success well. And of course, there’s plenty of advice on the state of the real estate market, and what lays ahead for first home buyers.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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• Episode 40: Lawyer turned Author, Rachel Paris

  In Leaders Getting Coffee episode 40, our guest is Lawyer turned Novelist, Rachel Paris. Success is a recurring theme in the life of Rachel Paris. With degrees from Auckland University in Economics and Law, and the Law Society’s prize for the top law student under her wing, she joined one of the country’s most prestigious law firms, Bell Gully. A spectacular law career in New Zealand and around the world followed. Along the way she completed her Master of Law degree at one of the world’s most prestigious law schools, Harvard Law. Her dissertation there was cited as ‘influential’ by the Wall Street Journal. After her Kiwi OE via a law firm in London, she returned to New Zealand, quickly becoming a Partner back at Bell Gully where, she became an expert in Banking and Finance law in the free lending days before the GFC, and she oversaw much of the post-crash restructuring that became the aftermath of those heady days. Uniquely, she put that career aside and left the law partnership, as her family moved to London, following husband Jason’s career at Vodafone. There, she created her own boutique law firm specialising in Blockchain technologies and supporting her global client base part time while organising a growing family in a new part of the world. But, having returned to New Zealand, it is her latest adventure that is the most fascinating. A masters degree in creative writing back at her old stomping ground at Auckland University and now a new book. And not a book about the law or even blockchain. But a novel, a twisting turning thriller about toxic rich people behaving badly! The book, published in New Zealand and Australia, is called “See How They Fall” and has already attained Number 1 Bestseller status, while a Hollywood production company has optioned the rights for the big screen. During the Leaders Getting Coffee podcast Rachel Paris talks about her amazing career and the lessons in leadership she has learned along the way. We learn more about Bitcoin, Harvard Law School, and the importance of making an impact, while balancing a family with three busy children and a CEO husband. And, as you might expect, there is both support and strongly worded advice for a government with plenty on its plate.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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• Episode 39: Founder of Perpetual Guardian & Author of The Four Day Week, Andrew Barnes

  In Leaders Getting Coffee episode 39, our guest is the brains behind the four day week, and Founder of Perpetual Guardian, Andrew Barnes. Andrew Barnes survived the hurly burly of London’s investment banking world in the 1980’s, the result of which saw him sent to Australia to manage the exposures held downunder by his banking masters in the UK. He moved to Australia for a month and stayed for twenty years. After returning briefly to the UK in the mid 2000’s, the GFC saw him head to New Zealand and a unique opportunity with the business that became Perpetual Guardian. During the Leaders Getting Coffee podcast Andrew Barnes speaks to Bruce Cotterill about the lessons he’s learned from a highly varied career and how re-defining risk led to his ability to make better investment decisions. Barnes came to prominence a few years back when his book, “The Four Day Week”, was launched during the covid lockdowns. Born of an article in the Economist, and time to think on a long flight, the concept of a four day working week and resultant improvements in productivity has been adopted by companies and countries around the world. His view that people can be more productive in four days than in five makes for a compelling conversation. Barnes, who these days splits his days between the UK and New Zealand also offers his thoughts on the different challenges being faced by each country. He cites the failure of politicians pursuing a change agenda to “take the people along with them” as a primary reason for the unravelling of our once cohesive culture. As for what he would do if he was Prime Minister for a day, his answer should be compulsory listening for every parliamentary MP.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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• Episode 38: Executive Director of the New Zealand Initiative, Dr Oliver Hartwich

  In Leaders Getting Coffee episode 38, our guest is the Executive Director of the New Zealand Initiative, Dr Oliver Hartwich. Oliver Hartwich was born in West Germany and talks of growing up in the 1980’s in a country shaped by the two World Wars that had until that point defined it. As Europe reshapes its defence strategies in response to the Ukraine crisis, his surprisingly frank conversation about his youth offers a stark reminder of the long-term impacts of war. But it is as an economist, specialising in thinking about government strategy, that he has made his career. That career has seen him working in the House of Lords and in think tanks in the UK, Australia, and ultimately, for the last twelve years, in his adopted home in New Zealand. During the Leaders Getting Coffee podcast Dr Hartwich speaks to Bruce Cotterill about the state of New Zealand, a country which he says has so much going in its favour, and yet continuously fails to live up to its potential. Using the extensive research base of the NZ Initiative as his base, he discusses the state of our housing market and explains in a simple and no-nonsense manner the reasons why such a small country at the end of the world has some of the world’s highest house process. And while on the local themes, his insights regarding our education system, excessive centralisation, infrastructure and the opportunity for direct foreign investment are as refreshing as they are direct. Dr Hartwich has made quite a name for himself as an international columnist, and his comments about the current state of the USA, Europe and the UK are so insightful that they should be regarded as compulsory listening for the millions who are relatively uninformed on matters of international geopolitics.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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