Leaders Getting Coffee with Bruce Cotterill

In Leaders Getting Coffee episode 59, our guest is Lisa King, the inspirational founder of Eat My Lunch and more recently alcohol free cocktail brand, Free AF.
She was born in Hong Kong and moved to New Zealand at the age of two. Her hardworking parents instilled a passion for education and an enthusiasm for entrepreneurial flair.
Lisa King didn’t waste that business oriented zest for life. A couple of university degrees provided her ticket to her dream jobs, in big corporate organisations that could show her the world.
The New Zealand Daily Board sent her to the Philippines, Unilever took her to the UK and the arrival of her first child brought her home. Roles in the heart of FMCG business followed at Bluebird, Cadbury and eventually back to the newly named Fonterra.
But a need to do something with purpose was stirring and, inspired by an advertisement for shoes – buy one get one free – she set up a school lunch programme that followed that same model. If sponsors would pay for a school lunch, her team would deliver that and another to students in need. It was called “Eat My Lunch” and it arrived at a time when some schools had 50 kids going without a midday meal.
They prepared the lunches in her lounge at first, and at its peak her team were delivering 2,600 free lunches and the same number of paid ones, across 45 schools, every day.
With the arrival of the Government’s school lunch programme, her work there was done and another purpose was waiting.
Lisa had decided to give up drinking alcohol, and was astounded by the social pressures and the awkward questions. She’d decided that the conversation around not drinking was broken.
And so, in 2020, despite Covid and lockdowns and plenty of reasons not to, she assembled a team and created a brand, developed recipes, and launched Free AF, an alcohol free cocktail brand with a goal to reduce the alcohol in people’s lives without sacrificing the experience.
On the Leaders Getting Coffee podcast Lisa King speaks to Bruce Cotterill about, not one, but two entrepreneurial journeys, the lessons she’s learned and the opportunities ahead. Free AF now features in more than 4,000 stores across the USA, including Whole Foods, Target and Walmart and she is very open about the hard work involved in getting established in a massive market, including the importance of keeping her team small and action orientated, jumping time zones and the funding challenges associated with order sizes you don’t expect.
This is a case study in purpose from someone who is in the process of building a global brand. It’s a must listen for every aspiring entrepreneur. Spoiler alert… it’s a lot of hard work!
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In Leaders Getting Coffee episode 58, our guest Sharon Zollner, Chief Economist at ANZ Bank.
At a time when the economic recovery in New Zealand is threatened, yet again, by a major international shock, we thought it was worthwhile to host one of the Country’s leading economists on Leaders Getting Coffee. And we weren’t disappointed. This week’s guest is one of the most entertaining economists we could wish to speak to.
A self-confessed geeky kid, and cricket tragic, Sharon Zollner grew up in rural Canterbury in a farming family near Methven. She excelled at school, particularly it seems in English and Mathematics, capabilities which influenced her decision to study English Literature and Economics.
She left Canterbury University with a Masters in Commerce and majors in Economics and English Literature, and headed to the New Zealand Reserve Bank to start what has become an amazingly successful career.
A stint with Norway’s central bank followed, where her work included developing a macro economic model for the Norwegian economy.
Returning to New Zealand, her climb up the ranks of Bank Economists has been rapid and she speaks openly about becoming the Chief Economist at ANZ in 2017, just ahead of a change in government and prior to the disruption created by Covid 19.
On the Leaders Getting Coffee podcast Sharon Zollner speaks to Bruce Cotterill about the current state of the New Zealand economy, which she suggests is more resilient that many of us might expect.
She is also refreshingly open about the impacts of war in the Middle East and the associated panic around oil prices and supplies, and the likely stages that economies will go through as the conflict continues.
As you might expect, Zollner reels off economic terms and statistics in an uncomplicated manner that is easy to understand and entertaining to listen to. Her lessons from Norway are interesting given the similarity of that economy to that of New Zealand, and the differing constraints that the two countries must operate within.
Most importantly, she is positive about the current state of New Zealand, despite the obvious headwinds, and one wishes that her enthusiasm for our future should be contagious.
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In Leaders Getting Coffee episode 57 part 2, we continue out chat with The Right Honourable Christopher Luxon, Prime Minister of New Zealand.
Following on from last week, we get deeper into his past two years as Prime Minister, the recent India Free Trade Agreement, and whether he would work another term alongside coalition partners Winston Peters and David Seymour.
There is no escaping Christopher Luxon’s aspiration for New Zealand nor his passion for the role that he now occupies. He’s driven by outcomes rather than slogans and that reflects in his attitude about the election campaign ahead.
And if he could flick a switch, what’s the one thing he would like to change?
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In Leaders Getting Coffee episode 57, our guest is The Right Honourable Christopher Luxon, Prime Minister of New Zealand.
A typical Kiwi upbringing was a hallmark of young Christopher Luxon’s life. The oldest of three brothers, he grew up in Christchurch and later Auckland, with working parents and a work ethic that was obvious early.
He was a sports mad kid, but it didn’t stop there. Walking home one afternoon he decided to cold call the neighbourhood homes to see if he could sell his services as a window cleaner. A business was born. It’s owner-operator just 14 years old.
He returned to his hometown of Christchurch for his university studies before his corporate career took hold.
Starting as a management trainee with global consumer goods giant Unilever, it was a company and a career that took him around the world. He worked in Australia, the United Kingdom and the USA before his eventual appointment as President and CEO of Unilever Canada.
In 2011, he returned to New Zealand for a senior executive role at Air New Zealand and a year later he was appointed CEO, a role he held for seven years.
That he walked away from such a spectacular business career is a story in itself. Within four years, and after just three years as a Member of Parliament, he became New Zealand’s 42nd Prime Minister.
In the Leaders Getting Coffee podcast, Christopher Luxon talks openly with Bruce Cotterill about his short but spectacular rise in New Zealand’s political scene. He is surprisingly open about his successes and failures in government to date and equally forthright about the assembly and operation of a coalition that has held together better than many expected.
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In Leaders Getting Coffee episode 56, our guest is the founder and CEO of Resonate Health, James Whittaker.
James started life in the UK and began his career in one of that country’s most iconic companies, British Airways. The story of how he became an entrepreneur on the other side of the world is both entertaining and inspiring.
He came to New Zealand with his young family as tourists, and they returned a year later with the intention of settling and staying.
He continued his corporate career in New Zealand, working with Private Equity to turnaround the fortunes of a company specialising in hearing aids.
But he thought of a better way, and after a couple of false starts, Resonate Health NZ was born.
Resonate brings a totally new approach to the business of hearing loss, and with an ageing population, the possibilities seem endless. From a startup in 2022 to 31 hearing studios today, the business is on a mammoth growth curve.
At its centre is world class technology and a driven entrepreneur determined to build the world’s best health care company.
In the Leaders Getting Coffee podcast, James Whittaker talks to Bruce Cotterill about a vision that sets his business apart, the extremes he goes to in order to attract talent, and the importance of building trust with his customers.
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