The SME Stream

In Leaders Getting Coffee episode 62, our guest is Caroline Harvie-Teare, who is the CEO of Venues Otautahi in Christchurch, home of the new One New Zealand Stadium.
She started life as a farm girl,but moved to the city as a youngster and became a heart and soul champion for the city of Christchurch. The farm girl lingered though as her passion for horses took her to eventing success.
That start reflects a toughness that has been reflected in every challenge she has taken on.
When the earthquakes hit her city her job in the events industry was under threat. So she stepped up to join the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority, doing her bit to help her city repair itself. Her success there led her to Christchurch International Airport as the city tried to recover its lost sparkle and resultant loss of tourists.
Her return to Venues Otautahi, the city’s main events hub, just a week before the first of the Covid 19 enforced lockdowns, provided another challenging chapter to a career that had already had it’s share.
But she has thrived. Venues Otautahi is now New Zealand’s largest events and venue company, and the organisation owns or manages some of the country’s most sought after venues including the revitalised Christchurch Town Hall, Woolfbrook Arena, Hagley Oval, and New Zealand’s newest and already arguable best stadium, One New Zealand Stadium at Te Kaha.
Caroline’s story encompasses many characteristics. Resilience and strength are obvious. But she is also someone who thinks very clearly about where her best skills lie and how she can apply those skills to make the best contribution.
She is unashamedly a proud and passionate cheerleader for her chosen city and her story provides countless lessons for any aspiring leader.
During the Leaders Getting Coffee podcast Caroline Harvie-Teare speaks to Bruce Cotterill about the tough days after the earthquakes and the memories that return as each step in the city’s recovery is taken. She’s very open about the tough decisions enforced as a result of Covid 19.
But the main story here is about a stadium. One that is so much more than a venue for sports and music. It’s a venue that represents the recovery of a once broken city and provides the ‘icing on the cake’ as that long rebuilding process nears completion.
Caroline Harvie-Teare has a great leadership story, and she tells it well. As is so often the case, the best leadership experiences occur when the circumstances are genuinely difficult. There are lessons aplenty from every step she has taken.
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The Opportunity Party is attracting growing support from young tech professionals, scientists, and startup founders, demanding bolder, more evidence‑based leadership.
That’s according to Opportunity party leader Qiulae Wong, the businesswoman, climate leader and mother who will lead the party into the election in a bid to crest the 5% popular vote threshold needed to see the party in a position to support a coalition government.
On this week’s episode of The Business of Tech, I sit down with Wong to discuss her party’s plan to lift New Zealand out of its low‑productivity rut by putting innovation at the centre of economic policy.
You’ll hear how the Opportunity Party wants to double R&D investment from around 1.5% of GDP to 3% – finally putting us in the same league as other advanced economies – and pair that with much stronger support for commercialisation so ideas don’t just die in the lab.
We also dig into how greater competition in highly concentrated sectors like supermarkets, banking and energy could free up capital and lower barriers for new, tech‑driven challengers.
Gold standard AI rules
A big focus of the episode is artificial intelligence and the weightless tech economy. Wong explains why New Zealand needs “gold standard” AI rules that are tight on outcomes but open for innovation, so founders can build globally competitive AI products here rather than in London or San Francisco. We talk skills, education, and the critical thinking needed to make sure AI boosts productivity instead of hollowing out jobs.
We also unpack how the Opportunity Party plans to pay for its policy agenda. Its newly released tax policy includes a 1.75% land value tax, a universal citizens’ income and compulsory “KiwiSaver 2.0” savings. Qiulae argues this package is designed to shift money out of speculative property and into productive investment, while helping fund a serious uplift in R&D and a faster clean‑energy transition.
Rounding out the episode, we explore a 25‑year energy strategy, ways to bring Kiwi tech talent home, and how citizens’ assemblies and digital voting could revitalise our democracy for a generation that lives online.
Has Opportunity got a chance? Recent polls have the party hovering around 3% of the popular vote, shy of the level needed to get its candidates into Parliament. But these are unprecedented times, with younger voters in particular looking for bold leadership. The momentum may be on this minor party’s side.
Listen to the full conversation with Qiulae Wong on this week’s episode of The Business of Tech, streaming on iHeartRadio, Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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Is kiwifruit at the cutting edge? Michael Franks is the CEO of Seeka, New Zealand’s largest kiwifruit grower and a major post-harvest provider, operating 11 automated packhouses and a network of leased and managed orchards.
We trace Seeka’s strong recovery after being "brought to our knees" by the Psa virus to become a $440m trans-Tasman operation. Michael explains Seeka’s embrace of renewable energy and emerging tech, with AI helping to reduce perishable fruit waste, automation to address labour shortages and reduce costs, solar energy to supplement their industrial power usage, and rain-tolerant rootstock to meet a changing climate.
Plus, Michael explains why a new free trade agreement with India could provide a strong safety net for New Zealand growers.
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On paper, New Zealand Super is one of the simplest parts of our welfare system.
Most people become eligible at 65, it’s not means tested, and for decades it’s been treated as a kind of social contract: work hard, reach retirement, and the state will be there.
But that contract is under growing pressure.
As our population ages and governments look for ways to contain long-term costs, the debate keeps returning. Should we raise the age of eligibility, and if we do, who pays the price?
Today on The Front Page, Auckland University Business School associate professor Susan St John is with us to talk about the future of superannuation, the arguments for and against raising the retirement age, and why this debate never stays settled for long.
Follow The Front Page on iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
You can read more about this and other stories in the New Zealand Herald, online at nzherald.co.nz, or tune in to news bulletins across the NZME network.
Host: Chelsea Daniels
Editor/Producer: Richard Martin
Producer: Jane Yee
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Westpac's Chief Economist Kelly Eckhold discusses the latest economic data and what the Australian Budget means.
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