In Leaders Getting Coffee episode 30, our guest is New Zealand Country Manager for Xero, Bridget Snelling.

Bridget completed her law degree at Auckland University before settling into the traditional first job of graduate lawyer at one of the city’s prestige law firms. Then everything changed.

To everyone’s surprise she left the law after only a couple of years and hasn’t looked back. A career that has included a stint at one of the country’s premier Public Relations firms led to seven years at TVNZ where she handled multiple roles before eventually moving to ANZ bank and becoming the head of Brand Marketing and Business Marketing. She moved to Xero as Marketing Manager four years later.

The Xero story is one of New Zealand’s great business start-up successes and there is no doubt that Bridget sees her role as something of a privilege. With over 3,000 New Zealand based staff, it’s a massive leadership challenge with people with varied needs and a fast-moving industry.

Bridget talks to Bruce Cotterill about the challenges of being a corporate leader and a mum of three children, the oldest of whom is about to embark on high school. She has plenty of lessons for busy parents including an acknowledgement that life is seldom perfect.

And we hear her views on productivity, talent, boundaries and what she calls “making accounting cool”.

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In Leaders Getting Coffee episode 29, our guest is business leader Sir Robert McLeod.

Rob grew up near Gisborne on the East Coast of New Zealand and over the last forty years has become one of New Zealand’s most influential business leaders of our time.

His career started as a tax specialist at KPMG and subsequently Arthur Andersen before he settled into the firm then known as Ernst & Young. There he became the Chair of the New Zealand Partnership, and subsequently CEO before later becoming CEO of EY Australia.

His influence across government policy grew as he took on appointments across a wide range of government appointed taskforces and commissions including Tertiary Education, Justice and an organisational review of the Inland Revenue Department. Most notable was his appointment in 2020 to the Treaty of Waitangi Fisheries Commission and in 2001 to the Chair of the New Zealand Tax Review, in what became known as the McLeod tax review.

His ability to stride both sides of the pollical spectrum is summed up by the fact that he was also the Chairman of the NZ Business Roundtable, a role supposedly not compatible with the Labour Government of the day, and yet he commanded both the Tax Review and the Roundtable with equal measures of independence and pragmatism.

During the Leaders Getting Coffee podcast, Rob speaks with Bruce Cotterill about the wide range of issues affecting the New Zealand economy, including the recent interest in a capital gains tax, the escalating debate about Maori sovereignty and the current challenges within our debt laden economy, including the need to reduce the size of government before implementing meaningful tax reform. And as you might expect, there’s plenty of discussion about what constitutes good leadership.

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In Leaders Getting Coffee episode 28, our guest is the former ACT Party Member of Parliament and NZCPR Founder, Dr. Muriel Newman.

Dr. Newman moved to New Zealand with her family as a young girl, and brought with her an approach to her education typified by her desire not to let her parents down. That education led to a career teaching in New Zealand and subsequently the USA, before returning to New Zealand to bring up her young children.

Her work as a part of Sir Michael Hill’s Whangarei team led to a position as President of the local Chamber of Commerce and subsequently as a founding member of the ACT party.

After nine years as an MP, she founded the New Zealand Centre for Political Research an independent public policy think tank that provides research-based analysis and commentary on matters of national interest.

NZCPR is guided by a firm belief that informed citizens are at the heart of a well-functioning democracy.

During the Leaders Getting Coffee podcast, she speaks to Bruce Cotterill about the enormous challenges for the New Zealand government in the aftermath of the Ardern Hipkins Labour government, in particular the implications of unravelling the failed centralisations, bloated bureaucracies and inflated expectations of those who were set to benefit from government decisions based on race.

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