News of New Zealanders via Global Media

Frost Boss Wins Prize for Innovative Farming Wind Machine

Frost Boss Wins Prize for Innovative Farming Wind Machine

New Zealand engineer Kim McAulay’s portable frost protection fan – the Tow & Blow – has taken out Victoria’s 2014 Mildura Field Day Innovation in Horticulture award. According to the company’s website, the Tow &…

Picton: The Place Where Jurassic Fossils Still Live

Picton: The Place Where Jurassic Fossils Still Live

A sea animal thought extinct for four million years has been rediscovered in, of all places, Picton, New Zealand. Previously unknown outside of Europe and the Middle East, fossilised remains of the sea animal…

American Focus on New Zealand Start-Ups

American Focus on New Zealand Start-Ups

Rod Drury has revealed his secret for New Zealand’s start-up success: “global from day one”. Xero founder and entrepreneur Rod Drury told the Wall Street Journal that New Zealand’s small domestic customer base means the…

World’s Number One Innovator: Xero

World’s Number One Innovator: Xero

Influential US business media Forbes has declared New Zealand start-up Xero as the world’s most innovative growth company, beating out much bigger and well-established companies, ASOS and NetSuite. The Wellington-based cloud accounting firm, which has…

Engineering Company Buys US Robotics Business

Engineering Company Buys US Robotics Business

Dunedin-based engineering company Scott Technology Limited, which has been operating in New Zealand for 100 years, has purchased Ohio industrial robot integrator RobotWorx, providing Scott with a strong strategic base to increase its market…

On the Hunt for a Prized Mollusc

On the Hunt for a Prized Mollusc

In Otago, a group of recreational fishermen are about to go on their regular autumn hunt for shellfish, but it is not just any mollusc that they’re after. They are looking for a humble…

Burger Company to Start Grillin’ in the US

Burger Company to Start Grillin’ in the US

This year, New Zealand fast-food chain BurgerFuel is undertaking an ambitious expansion plan in the crowded American market through a partnership with Subway restaurants, an industry giant, the New York Times reports. Inside the Grey…

Lord of the Rings Triggers Kiwi Tech ‘Success Story’

Lord of the Rings Triggers Kiwi Tech ‘Success Story’

Microsoft has bought a Wellington cloud computing business that can trace its origin to the Lord of the Rings movies. The software giant has snapped up GreenButton, which has 18 staff, for an undisclosed amount….

New Zealander’s Honest Brew to Swap Beers for Bitcoins

New Zealander’s Honest Brew to Swap Beers for Bitcoins

UK-based online beer platform Honest Brew has added bitcoin to its list of payment methods. Honest Brew was started up in London by Andrew Reeve, a New Zealander who had long been a fan of…

Posse Founder Declares Business Barriers Imaginary

Posse Founder Declares Business Barriers Imaginary

Music industry entrepreneur and founder of social search engine Posse.com Wellingtonian Rebekah Campbell draws from her childhood to discuss how barriers to success are imaginary in a recent blog posting. “As a 13-year-old…

World’s First Jetpack Prepares for Commercial Sales

World’s First Jetpack Prepares for Commercial Sales

A New Zealand-based company is now close to making the jetpack only seen in science fiction movies a reality as the Civil Aviation Authority in the country has approved test…

China Tilapia Supplier Expanding His Farms

China Tilapia Supplier Expanding His Farms

“New Zealander Jason Carter always knew he was an entrepreneur at heart, but running a fully vertically integrated tilapia business in China was not exactly what he planned on when he travelled…

Dreamliner Flying in the Face of Convention

Dreamliner Flying in the Face of Convention

16 April 2014 – The newly painted, and “stunning”, black Air New Zealand 787-9 is literally flying in the face of convention, according to Los Angeles Times travel editor Catharine Hamm. “The Dreamliner,…

Famed US Business Thinker Lauds NZ Anchor Company

Famed US Business Thinker Lauds NZ Anchor Company

Fourth generation family sea anchor business WA Coppins, a Port of Nelson-based company, has made a big splash with one of the world’s most influential business thinkers, American author Tom Peters. Peters, author…

Signing up as Finance Director at Bank of Scotland

Signing up as Finance Director at Bank of Scotland

The Royal Bank of Scotland has hired New Zealander Ewen Stevenson, of Credit Suisse, as its new finance director, to help restore the health of the part-nationalised bank, which lost 8.2 billion pounds last…

Wipster Launches Video Software at SXSW Festival

Wipster Launches Video Software at SXSW Festival

Wellington-based start-up Wipster has launched its video sharing software platform globally, just over a year after being founded by New Zealand filmmaker Rollo Wenlock. Wipster allows editors to share their…

Peter Thiel Invests Big in POS Software Provider Vend

Peter Thiel Invests Big in POS Software Provider Vend

New Zealand point of sale, cloud-based software provider Vend has new investors – Peter Thiel, the PayPal cofounder and the first outside investor in Facebook, is among a group that has agreed…

New Zealand’s Dusty Landscapes Explain Ice Age Cooling

New Zealand’s Dusty Landscapes Explain Ice Age Cooling

3 April 2014 – New Zealand’s iron-rich dust is helping scientists explain how the Earth cooled after the last Ice Age. Scientists travelled to the Southern Alps in an expedition to gather dust samples…

Talking to an Angel for Start-Up Investment Tips

Talking to an Angel for Start-Up Investment Tips

Award-winning angel investor, New Zealand-born technology entrepreneur Dale Murray talks to British publication Director magazine about the best path to take in order to secure start-up investment or to fund the crucial…

Knittable Sensor Could Revolutionise Bandages

Knittable Sensor Could Revolutionise Bandages

Simon McMaster, a New Zealand-born inventor and chemist, has developed a new knittable, wearable sensor, which could lead to the creation of bandages that measure their own tightness. The sensor will be demonstrated for…

Public Response to Climate Engineering Tested

Public Response to Climate Engineering Tested

Averting mass economic and social upheaval from looming climate change will likely require forms of climate engineering to supplement existing energy efficiency and emissions control programs. Climate engineering is the…

Not Since 1974: Kiwi Dollar to Hit Parity with Aussie

Not Since 1974: Kiwi Dollar to Hit Parity with Aussie

The last time it happened Dick Taylor won gold at the 10,000m Commonwealth Games in Christchurch, Hone Tuwhare was awarded the Robert Burns Fellowship for poetry and Bunny Walters topped the charts with his…

Get out of Your Routine, Says Fitness Exec

Get out of Your Routine, Says Fitness Exec

Sarah Robb O’Hagan, president of American luxury fitness company Equinox Fitness, is one of six luminaries invited by the Wall Street Journal to weigh in on the question of power. The New Zealander is…

Top Gear’s Jeremy Clarkson Quadskis into Lake Como

Top Gear’s Jeremy Clarkson Quadskis into Lake Como

Jeremy Clarkson, host of hit BBC show Top Gear, recently drove the New Zealand-designed Quadski, described as “the world’s first personal sports amphibian” vehicle, into Italy’s Lake Como in a race against co-presenter Richard…

Virgin Media Boss Building Company up from the Top

Virgin Media Boss Building Company up from the Top

The boss of Virgin Media, New Zealander Tom Mockridge, a former senior lieutenant in Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, has been busy since he was installed as chief executive last June. For much of the…

Wellington Crema the Crop!

Wellington Crema the Crop!

Wellington, home of the flat white, has been named one of the world’s 8 great coffee cities by CNN, in a list which also includes roasting heavy weights Melbourne, Rome and Seattle. There’s…

Air NZ Soars Above Qantas

Air NZ Soars Above Qantas

The last time Air New Zealand invested in the Australian aviation market, the airline required a Government bail-out to stave off bankruptcy as its subsidiary Ansett fell apart. This time round, it’s Air New…

Promoting an Egalitarian Workplace with a Global Approach

Promoting an Egalitarian Workplace with a Global Approach

Originally from Hastings, Todd Lauchlan, 41, is Indonesia country head at property consulting company Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL). He talks with the Jakarta Post about his role at the firm and how an egalitarian…

Serial Entrepreneur Forging His Own Online Spice Routes

Serial Entrepreneur Forging His Own Online Spice Routes

New Zealand-born James Lillis, 37, is the founder of Black Milk, “one of the fastest-growing Australian clothing companies you’ve never heard of, selling more than 1000 garments a day,” Glenda Korporaal writes in a…

Xero Eyes 29 Million US Small Businesses

Xero Eyes 29 Million US Small Businesses

Wellington-based accounting software maker Xero signals a major push in the United States market, with appointment of former and current executives from Microsoft, HP and PayPal in a move analysts say could foreshadow a…

NZ Farm the Basis for Winning London Butchery

NZ Farm the Basis for Winning London Butchery

Nothing tastes better than grass-fed beef and lamb, as anyone raised on a New Zealand farm can tell you. But for those poor souls who flew the coop in search of a different life…

Toxicologist Claims Alexander the Great Died from Poisoned Wine

Toxicologist Claims Alexander the Great Died from Poisoned Wine

National Poisons Centre toxicologist Dr Leo Schep may have unravelled the mystery surrounding the death of Greek king Alexander the Great, who died at 32 in 323BC. Schep thinks the culprit could be poisonous wine…

National Australia Bank Appoints Tech Whizz Geraldine McBride

National Australia Bank Appoints Tech Whizz Geraldine McBride

Victoria University-educated Geraldine McBride, founder and chief executive of software company MyWave, has been appointed director of National Australia Bank (NAB) and will join the board in March. McBride’s appointment is a clear demonstration of…

Computers Number One Risk to Humanity Says NZ Scientist

Computers Number One Risk to Humanity Says NZ Scientist

In 2011, New Zealander Shane Legg, co-founder of London-based DeepMind, the artificial intelligence company acquired last week by Google for some US$500 million, made an ominous prediction more befitting a ranting survivalist than an…

Insurance Boss Marks One-Year Anniversary at Helm with SE Asia Deal

Insurance Boss Marks One-Year Anniversary at Helm with SE Asia Deal

Chief executive officer of Britain’s second-largest insurer Aviva, New Zealander Mark Wilson, has marked his one-year anniversary at the company targeting high-growth markets in Southeast Asia. This month Aviva formed a joint venture with…

World’s First Flower Vending Machine Opens in London Tube Station

World’s First Flower Vending Machine Opens in London Tube Station

New Zealand-born film production designer Andrew McAlpine has launched Rockflower, the world’s first flower retail and vending kiosk on the forecourt of London’s Blackfriars Underground station. Trading has been going very well so far, says Rockflower founder and…

Top Innovation Prize Goes to Kiwi

Top Innovation Prize Goes to Kiwi

Auckland-based designer Nelson Rayner has won an international prize for innovation run by Google and the Advertising Club of New York. Rayner, Australian-born but raised in New Zealand, won the Young Innovators Award for…

Nautical Hot Rod Breaches like a Whale

Nautical Hot Rod Breaches like a Whale

It looks like an Orca breaching the water in pursuit of its favourite stingray prey. But it is in fact the high performance “hot rod for the water” that is the brainchild of California-based…

Zombie Game Downloaded a Million times One Year Before Launch

Zombie Game Downloaded a Million times One Year Before Launch

New Zealand-born game designer Dean Hall’s online zombie thriller DayZ has been downloaded one million times, barely a month after its “alpha” launch on PC gaming service Steam, Guardian games blogger Keith…

Forensic Software Invention Transforming DNA Gathering

Forensic Software Invention Transforming DNA Gathering

A New Zealand forensic software invention is changing crime scene investigation across the world, meaning that for the first time police can take samples containing DNA profiles of up to four individuals without reference…

NY Google Internship Awarded to Hamilton Man

NY Google Internship Awarded to Hamilton Man

Hamilton man Boris Pfahringer has secured an internship with Google and will spend 14 weeks at the search giant’s New York office in Manhattan. Pfahringer – who has just graduated with a bachelor of computing…

New Zealand Outpaces Crawling World Economy

New Zealand Outpaces Crawling World Economy

In a world still limping its way out of the global financial crisis, The Wall Street Journal has written that New Zealand’s economy is looking remarkably zippy – and even outdoing our much larger…

What’s Not to like about Grown Men Dancing?

What’s Not to like about Grown Men Dancing?

English socialite and sister of the Duchess of Cambridge, Pippa Middleton, who prefers “rugger” to soccer, explains the game to Vanity Fair readers in the latest issue of the magazine, mentioning the “battle cry”…

AJ Hackett Heads to Russia for Ever Bigger Thrills

AJ Hackett Heads to Russia for Ever Bigger Thrills

New Zealand bungy kingpin AJ Hackett will set multiple records in Russia this year, when the world’s highest swing, the world’s longest pedestrian suspension bridge (550m) and a double-ended flying fox open as part…

Auckland Amped with New Trains

Auckland Amped with New Trains

Monocle radars Auckland as a “City to Watch” on the international stage in 2014, primarily stimulated by the forthcoming launch of a fleet of 57 electric trains as part of a billion dollar rail…

London Investment Bank Chief has Never Lost Ties to NZ

London Investment Bank Chief has Never Lost Ties to NZ

Investment bank chief executive New Zealander Kent Gardner, who runs London-based Evans Randall, has been living in the United Kingdom for more than a decade and says he never lost ties to…

Make Your Customers a Promise Says Entrepreneur

Make Your Customers a Promise Says Entrepreneur

New Zealand-born business speaker and global entrepreneur Carl Bates was recently in Cape Town addressing business owners at a Business Partners seminar on the difference between product and promise in business. “My favourite example…

Royal Bank of Scotland Head Gets Back to Basics

Royal Bank of Scotland Head Gets Back to Basics

Asked about possible job cuts for the 125,000 staff of the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), New Zealander Ross McEwan turns the question to what jobs are needed for the bank to better serve…

New Zealand’s Ongoing Brain Drain

New Zealand’s Ongoing Brain Drain

New Zealand is no stranger to the ‘brain drain’ phenomenon, having experienced substantial losses of highly skilled talent for decades. The country is now at the point where the Organization for Economic Cooperation and…

Local Video Game Makers among Best in the World

Local Video Game Makers among Best in the World

New Zealand video game makers have been lauded in major international “Best of 2013” lists, with West Auckland-based Grinding Gear Games’ Path of Exile winning GameSpot’s PC Game of the Year Award and…

New Zealand’s cows come home in its own commodities boom

New Zealand’s cows come home in its own commodities boom

The Chinese consumer market’s demand for quality milk products is fuelling New Zealand’s economic growth. Senior Australian economics correspondent Michael Pascoe outlines 2014 economic prospects for New Zealand, based significantly around a “one commodity…

Fonterra takes Anchor brand to China

Fonterra takes Anchor brand to China

Four months on from August’s botulism scare, New Zealand dairy giant Fonterra has launched their Anchor brand into the Chinese market. The brand, which is endorsed by Chinese actress Hu Ke, is being touted a…

Strong Brand and the Product’s the Real Deal

Strong Brand and the Product’s the Real Deal

Lewis Road Creamery, located at Green Valley Dairy, Mangatawhiri in the Waikato, is included in the “The Monocle 100” list as one of the “innovative minds behind global food production.” “Until last year, the…

State of the Art Voyage to the Deep

State of the Art Voyage to the Deep

New Zealand and Japanese scientists joined forces on a recent expedition to explore underwater mountains and volcanoes 1000km northeast of the country around the Louisville Seamount Chain and the Kermadec Arc. From the research…

Ammann named GM President

Ammann named GM President

New Zealander Dan Ammann, 41, General Motors’ Chief Financial Officer, has been promoted to President of GM. He will manage the company’s regional operations around the world, as well as the Chevrolet…

Global Recognition for Biofuels Pioneer

Global Recognition for Biofuels Pioneer

Loss-making biofuels innovator LanzaTech’s quest to raise more capital next year has been given a boost after it was named second “hottest” biotech company in the world. Industry bible Biofuels Digest also named the…