News of New Zealanders via Global Media

How Pacific Islanders Helped Moana Find Its Way

How Pacific Islanders Helped Moana Find Its Way

Fine attention to detail and constant feedback from John Musker and Ron Clements, the writer-director team behind Moana’s cultural advisory group The Oceanic Story Trust, has helped shape the Disney film on every level, Vanity…

Christie’s Imogen Kerr Making Waves in Art World

Christie’s Imogen Kerr Making Waves in Art World

To mark Christie’s 250th anniversary, Luxury London met with New Zealander Imogen Kerr who, along with Briton Kate Flitcroft, represents the new generation of female specialists at the renowned auction house making a name…

Get Naked with a 3D Fitness Tracker Mirror

Get Naked with a 3D Fitness Tracker Mirror

New Zealand-born Farhad Farahbakhshian and Briton Ed Sclater of Naked Labs have designed a mirror that lets you see, in real-time, the effect of your workout on your body. The Naked 3D Fitness…

Peter Jackson to Produce Sci-Fi Series Adaptation

Peter Jackson to Produce Sci-Fi Series Adaptation

Oscar-winning director Peter Jackson will produce an adaptation of British author Philip Reeve’s steampunk series Mortal Engines, the script which the New Zealander has also co-written. Another Academy Award winner, Christian Rivers, Jackson’s long-term collaborator…

Kopupaka Reserve Wins World Landscape of the Year 2016

Kopupaka Reserve Wins World Landscape of the Year 2016

Kopupaka Reserve – “an Auckland wetlands reserve featuring “woven” timber structures has been named World Landscape of the Year 2016 at the World Architecture Festival,” writes Amy Frearson for Dezeen. The reserve, a…

Rocket Lab’s Peter Beck Building Business in Space

Rocket Lab’s Peter Beck Building Business in Space

Self-taught New Zealand-born scientist and CEO of Rocket Lab Peter Beck, 39, explains to accountancy industry magazine Acuity how – and why – he is making space more accessible. At its Auckland base, Rocket Lab…

Record Bilateral Trade Figures Mark Bank Of China New Zealand 2nd Anniversary

Record Bilateral Trade Figures Mark Bank Of China New Zealand 2nd Anniversary

(SPONSORED CONTENT) “Latest China-New Zealand trade statistics illustrate the value Bank of China (New Zealand) brings to the economic relationship as the bank marks its second full-year of operation in New Zealand,” as reported…

NZ Folk Singer Who’ll Put A Spell On You

NZ Folk Singer Who’ll Put A Spell On You

“New Zealand’s Aldous Harding –who was recently recommended by Charlotte Church in the Guardian” is “a folk artist whose performances strike that rare balance between fragility and full-blown possession,” writes Kate Hutchinson in an…

Qantas’ Lesley Grant Airline’s Saving Grace

Qantas’ Lesley Grant Airline’s Saving Grace

Qantas Loyalty chief New Zealand-born Lesley Grant is one of three individuals on the executive team who have helped the airline’s turnaround, according to chief executive Alan Joyce. Grant was an air hostess who worked…

NZ Model Set Up Luxury Travel Firm After Dare

NZ Model Set Up Luxury Travel Firm After Dare

“It’s often said that the inspiration for starting a business can come from anywhere. For Stephanie Chai it was a dare,” writes Sarah Porter for the BBC. The NZ-born model and former TV…

Bollywood Star on Power-Packed NZ Adventure Trail

Bollywood Star on Power-Packed NZ Adventure Trail

Bollywood superstar and adventure junkie Sidharth Malhotra, 31, was in New Zealand recently shooting a social media video highlighting New Zealand’s scenery, adrenalin-packed activities and cultural experiences which will be incorporated into Tourism New…

Trump Undermines America’s Tattered Authority – Rigg

Trump Undermines America’s Tattered Authority – Rigg

“Hillary Clinton and the Democrats deserved to lose the presidential election,” writes Bob Rigg, Wellington-based researcher and writer specialising in nuclear issues, the Middle East, Central Asia, and US foreign policy, in an opinion…

Violinist Benjamin Baker Wins NY Music Prize

Violinist Benjamin Baker Wins NY Music Prize

Violinist Benjamin Baker, 26, has been named one of four first prizewinners at the 2016 Young Concert Artists (YCA) International Auditions in New York. The four artists were selected from a pool of nearly 200…

World Fantasy Award for Novelist Anna Smaill

World Fantasy Award for Novelist Anna Smaill

Author Anna Smaill’s debut The Chimes won best novel at the 2016 World Fantasy Awards in Ohio, United States, a “wonderful honour”, the Victoria University lecturer said. “I’m really happy. The authors on the shortlist…

Jacky Scanlan Dyas Wins Person of the Year Award

Jacky Scanlan Dyas Wins Person of the Year Award

Jacky Scanlan Dyas, a Kiwi from Gisborne and a corporate partner at Hogan Lovells’ Tokyo office, has won the Person of the Year Award at this year’s British Business Awards at a gala event…

All Blacks Exact Immediate Revenge in Dublin Thriller

All Blacks Exact Immediate Revenge in Dublin Thriller

“Two weeks after their 18-game winning run was ended by a 40-29 defeat to Ireland in Chicago, New Zealand reasserted their hegemony with a victory that was a lot less convincing than the score…

Heavy Metal Drummer Reprints WW2 Book

Heavy Metal Drummer Reprints WW2 Book

New Zealand-born author and musician Lawrence Paterson has recently reprinted his fourth book, Hitler’s Grey Wolves: U-Boats In The Indian Ocean, which originally came out in 2004 and explores the forty German submarines that…

Tape Face Captivates in Milton Keynes

Tape Face Captivates in Milton Keynes

Fresh from a stint on America’s Got Talent, New Zealand comedian Sam Wills, aka Tape Face, recently preformed in Milton Keynes, delivering “a captivating set of skits that the audience on stage and…

48 Hours In Wellington

48 Hours In Wellington

Wellington “is a small city and practically everything in the downtown district is in a straight line between the mountains that rise to the west and the bay to the east,” writes Christopher Beanland…

Rebecca Taylor Says Logoff and Buy in Store

Rebecca Taylor Says Logoff and Buy in Store

Rebecca Taylor started her fashion line two decades ago, cutting and sewing at a kitchen table in New York that she had built herself. Since then, the New Zealand-born designer has established stores in…

Keeping an Eye on Endace

Keeping an Eye on Endace

Designed by little-known New Zealand company Endace, a powerful piece of technology called the Medusa system, had one main purpose: to vacuum up vast quantities of internet data at an astonishing speed. And it…

NZ String Quartet Communicate a Culture

NZ String Quartet Communicate a Culture

If you were to listen to the New Zealand String Quartet (NZSQ) with your eyes closed, could you tell that they were from halfway around the world? The Hamilton Spectator classical music writer Leonard Turnevicius…

Lisa Harrow’s Coriolanus Role Lauded

Lisa Harrow’s Coriolanus Role Lauded

A New York Times reviewer describes Auckland-born actor Lisa Harrow’s performance as “superb” in her role as Volumnia in Red Bull Theatre’s “gripping new production” of Shakespeare’s Coriolanus, on now at New…

Morgan Marquis-Boire Talks Tech Tough in California

Morgan Marquis-Boire Talks Tech Tough in California

New Zealand-born security researcher, hacker and journalist Morgan Marquis-Boire recently spoke on digital authoritarianism at an Ars Technica Live event in Oakland, California, “telling us,” according to the Ars Technica Facebook pages, “what we…

Peter Duncan Takes up New Rugby Role in Hong Kong

Peter Duncan Takes up New Rugby Role in Hong Kong

New Hong Kong Rugby Union president New Zealander Peter Duncan is “honoured” to be in the job after a 16-year hiatus. Duncan was first involved with the union as Hong Kong’s coach in the 1970s…

Air New Zealand Named “Most Excellent” Airline for 2017

Air New Zealand Named “Most Excellent” Airline for 2017

“Air New Zealand has been named 2017 Airline of the Year by AirlineRatings.com in its Airline Excellence Awards,” writes Maureen O’Hare in an article for CNN. It’s the fourth time the airline…

Rescue Under Way For Thousands Stranded By New Zealand Earthquake

Rescue Under Way For Thousands Stranded By New Zealand Earthquake

Following Monday’s 7.5 earthquake near Hanmer Springs on New Zealand’s South Island, which saw two people dead and several injured, “military helicopters and a navy ship dispatched to coastal town of Kaikoura with buildings…

Millbrook Resort Named Best Golf Hotel in Oceania

Millbrook Resort Named Best Golf Hotel in Oceania

Millbrook Resort has been named Best Golf Hotel 2016 in Oceania and New Zealand in this year’s World Golf Awards. New Zealand has been named the Best Golfing Destination in Oceania at the…

Oamaru’s Underpass for March of the Penguins

Oamaru’s Underpass for March of the Penguins

A group of Little Blue Penguins have had their own underpass built between their nests and the sea at Oamaru Harbour to protect them from traffic and give them privacy from tourists keen to…

Is it Time for Disgruntled Americans to Move?

Is it Time for Disgruntled Americans to Move?

“The prospect of a Trump presidency led to some prominent Americans – including Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg – joking, or perhaps half-joking, that they would move to New Zealand,” Washington Post Tokyo…

Beauden Barrett Voted World Player of the Year

Beauden Barrett Voted World Player of the Year

“New Zealand flyhalf Beauden Barrett has been voted World Player of the Year as the world champion All Blacks swept the major awards at the end of a record-breaking rugby season,” as reported in…

A Toast to New Zealand’s Wine

A Toast to New Zealand’s Wine

“New Zealand wine regions are at their most spectacular in fall, when the days are long and bathed in late sunshine,” as reported in an article in the Canada Free Press, which features some…

NZ Cave Has Beautiful Phenomenon That Doesn’t Exist Anywhere Else

NZ Cave Has Beautiful Phenomenon That Doesn’t Exist Anywhere Else

“Deep underground in New Zealand’s North Island, a winding underground universe of limestone caves glow with a magical blue-green light. While it might seem like pure fantasy, these caves are very real. Their dark…

The Green Landscapes Of New Zealand

The Green Landscapes Of New Zealand

“From the undeveloped interiors of Caribbean islands to the virgin jungles of southwestern Africa to the temperate rain forests of Oceania and the Pacific Northwest, it is possible to trek through a huge variety…

The Best of Taranaki

The Best of Taranaki

“Tucked away on the central west coast of New Zealand’s North Island, the Taranaki region is both overlooked and under-appreciated. But for more intrepid travellers, the area dubbed ‘the ‘Naki’ is definitely worth a…

New Ghost in The Shell Behind the Scenes Released

New Ghost in The Shell Behind the Scenes Released

“Come 2017, Hollywood veteran Scarlett Johansson will be headlining Paramount’s lavish Ghost in the Shell movie as The Major, an elite cyborg enforcer who spearheads a task force known as Section 9,” writes Michael…

Wine and Fine Lodgings in Hawkes Bay

Wine and Fine Lodgings in Hawkes Bay

“It seems everyone in Hawkes Bay on the east coast of New Zealand needs a winery.  Inspect any wine map of this bountiful region and the place appears alive with wineries, some with attached…

Inside Magic Leap, the Startup Changing Computing Forever

Inside Magic Leap, the Startup Changing Computing Forever

At Magic Leap, the start-up that secretly raised nearly $1.4 billion in venture capital, humanoid robots are walking down the halls, green reptilian monsters hang out in the lounge and there are cartoon fairies…

Ritz-Carlton Coming to Auckland

Ritz-Carlton Coming to Auckland

The Ritz Carlton will open an Auckland Hotel come 2019, reports Chris Chamberlin in an article in the Australian Business Traveller. “We have long desired to bring The Ritz-Carlton to New Zealand and…

New Zealand Is The New Refuge For the Mega Rich

New Zealand Is The New Refuge For the Mega Rich

New Zealand’s isolation has long been considered the country’s Achilles heel. “That remoteness is turning into an advantage, however, with hedge-fund pioneer Julian Robertson to Russian steel titan Alexander Abramov and Hollywood director James…

Sam Ovens Teaches Americans Secrets to Wealth

Sam Ovens Teaches Americans Secrets to Wealth

Entrepreneur Sam Ovens, who is originally from Auckland, achieved something truly unique – by the age of just 25. He became a consultant to consultants and made over US$10 million. From his luxury apartment…

MasterChef’s Monica Galetti Back for New Series

MasterChef’s Monica Galetti Back for New Series

There are 48 cooks taking on the challenge of impressing fearsome judges Monica Galetti and Marcus Wareing as MasterChef: The Professionals returns to BBC Two – but there’s only one woman in the line-up…

Melanie Lynskey Sticking to the Indies

Melanie Lynskey Sticking to the Indies

Melanie Lynskey, star of the latest Duplass brothers film, Rainbow Time, talks to Metro US about indies, acting for friends and being chummy with the most evil people in the world: film critics. “I feel…

Food Blogger Jessica Prescott’s Kale Recipe Wows

Food Blogger Jessica Prescott’s Kale Recipe Wows

Vegan food blogger and photographer New Zealander Jessica Prescott’s kale scones recipe features on lifestyle and news site Well+Good. Prescott, who is based in Berlin, is the blogger behind Wholly Goodness and has…

Tall Ship Celebrates Tenacious Sailors

Tall Ship Celebrates Tenacious Sailors

New Zealander Paul Shaw was a keen sailor until an accident 28 years ago left him in a wheelchair. Then he heard about the Tenacious, a tall ship run by a UK charity, so…

New Zealand Fashion Magazine Lands Naomi Campbell

New Zealand Fashion Magazine Lands Naomi Campbell

Naomi Campbell will feature in New Zealand magazine Remix December “ICONS” issue, as reported in Adweek. “I sent Naomi a copy of Remix through her manager, who happens to be a friend of…

New Zealand The World’s Most Prosperous Country

New Zealand The World’s Most Prosperous Country

New  Zealand  has topped the Legatum Institute’s 10th annual global Prosperity Index, “a huge survey that ranks the most prosperous countries in the world,” writes Will Martin in an article for Business…

Greg Semu Exhibition on at SCAF in Sydney

Greg Semu Exhibition on at SCAF in Sydney

Auckland-born curator and independent indigenous researcher Greg Semu is the featured artist in an exhibition on at Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation (SCAF) in Sydney. “Collection+: Greg Semu” is a major exhibition which contextualises…

Downside to NZ’s Booming Manuka Honey Industry

Downside to NZ’s Booming Manuka Honey Industry

The global craze for manuka, highly valued for its medicinal properties, has created a gold rush in rural New Zealand that some believe is rapidly spiralling out of control, Eleanor Ainge Roy reports in…

Ireland End New Zealand’s Record Streak

Ireland End New Zealand’s Record Streak

It was “a great result for Ireland. And an even better one for New Zealand,” writes Mick Cleary for the Telegraph after Ireland beat the New Zealand All Blacks 40 to 29. “You…

Filmmaker Gregory King’s UFO Wins in Toronto

Filmmaker Gregory King’s UFO Wins in Toronto

New Zealand-born director Gregory King has won Best Short Drama for his 2014 film UFO at this year’s imagineNATIVE Film and Media Arts Festival held in Toronto. King said from Berlin, where he lives, that the…

Jake Millar’s ‘Unfiltered’ Interviews With Business Leaders

Jake Millar’s ‘Unfiltered’ Interviews With Business Leaders

21-year-old Jake Millar from New Zealand is turning his passion for business education into an empire, reports Shawn Setaro for Forbes. The young kiwi is the founder of Unfiltered, “a company that…

Best Places To Hike In New Zealand

Best Places To Hike In New Zealand

As the New Zealand summer is quickly approaching, people from all over the world flock to New Zealand. A guest post on Buzzfeed lists some amazing places to go hiking in New…

Comfortable Culture Amid Breathtaking Landscape

Comfortable Culture Amid Breathtaking Landscape

Cruising Milford Sound is one of the most iconic activities in New Zealand. Susan Hegger, who wrote about her trip in an article for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, was surprised how even…

Rod Drury: “London’s Fintech Scene Is ‘World Class’”

Rod Drury: “London’s Fintech Scene Is ‘World Class’”

Rod Drury, “the CEO of £1.4 billion accountancy software giant Xero says London is a world leader in fintech — financial technology — and will remain that way post-Brexit,” reports Oscar Williams-Grut in an…

Economy Milks Clamour for Middle Earth

Economy Milks Clamour for Middle Earth

Peter Jackson’s Lord Of The Rings and Hobbit series have proved to be as precious to New Zealand’s economy as any magical ring with millions flocking to the country for a glimpse of Middle…