Leaders Getting Coffee with Bruce Cotterill

In Leaders Getting Coffee episode 42, our guest is Distinguished Professor Emeritus Paul Spoonley, of Massey University. Paul Spoonley is a career academic with a remarkable ability to explain complex matters in very straight-forward terms. But that straight forward manner is less surprising when we hear about someone who spent five years working in the freezing works,and later star...

In Leaders Getting Coffee episode 41, our guest is real estate’s Martin Cooper, the principal of Harcourts Cooper & Co. Most will know him as the man on television shouting “the North Shore, what a great place to live.” But Martin Cooper’s story started in Queenstown where he grew up and where he admits to taking the magnificent landscape around him for granted. He was...

In Leaders Getting Coffee episode 40, our guest is Lawyer turned Novelist, Rachel Paris. Success is a recurring theme in the life of Rachel Paris. With degrees from Auckland University in Economics and Law, and the Law Society’s prize for the top law student under her wing, she joined one of the country’s most prestigious law firms, Bell Gully. A spectacular law career in New Zealand a...

In Leaders Getting Coffee episode 39, our guest is the brains behind the four day week, and Founder of Perpetual Guardian, Andrew Barnes. Andrew Barnes survived the hurly burly of London’s investment banking world in the 1980’s, the result of which saw him sent to Australia to manage the exposures held downunder by his banking masters in the UK. He moved to Australia for a month and st...

In Leaders Getting Coffee episode 38, our guest is the Executive Director of the New Zealand Initiative, Dr Oliver Hartwich. Oliver Hartwich was born in West Germany and talks of growing up in the 1980’s in a country shaped by the two World Wars that had until that point defined it. As Europe reshapes its defence strategies in response to the Ukraine crisis, his surprisingly frank conversati...

In Leaders Getting Coffee episode 37, our guest is Emeritus Professor of Health at Auckland University Medical School, Des Gorman.  An Otahuhu schoolboy who applied to enrol at Auckland Medical School, because his friend was applying, turned that accidental decision into one of the most distinguished medical careers in New Zealand. That medical career nearly went off the rails when his disill...

In Leaders Getting Coffee episode 36, our guest is TVNZ CEO, Jodi O’Donnell.  She took over as the CEO of TVNZ just a few months before having to front the announcement of the company’s disastrous financial result, a process that ultimately led to a restructuring programme that included the loss of loved TV shows such as Fair Go and Sunday. Despite her baptism of fire, Jodi O&rsqu...

In Leaders Getting Coffee episode 35, our guest is Olympic High Jump champion, Hamish Kerr. He describes himself as too tall for a runner. So it was just as well that a young Hamish Kerr scuttled down to the High Jump enclosure after his 800 metre race ended. There he found a natural ability and reduced competition; a combination that saw him develop a passion for this highly technical event at a...

In Leaders Getting Coffee episode 34, our guest is Foodstuffs CEO, Chris Quin.  The supermarket industry is never far from the headlines. Whether we’re talking about grocery prices, retail crime or allegations of monopoly pricing, the supermarket is front and centre. But they are also massive businesses playing a critical role in our daily lives and our communities.  Chris Quin is...

In Leaders Getting Coffee episode 33, our guest is Australian rugby referee Angus Gardner. When a back injury forced a young Angus Gardner to give up contact sports at the age of 15, he thought his involvement in the game he loved was at an end. But thanks to a dedicated school teacher who suggested he take up refereeing as a way to stay involved in the sport, that injury created a pathway that wo...

In Leaders Getting Coffee episode 32, our guest is Kiwibank CEO, Steve Jurkovich. Banks play an important role in the economy and our everyday lives. And yet, it’s the first time we’ve had a bank CEO as our guest on the podcast. And he doesn’t disappoint. From growing up in Paeroa and Auckland’s North Shore, and a boyhood dominated by sports at Glenfield College, we hear of a fast moving career su...

In Leaders Getting Coffee episode 31, our guest is The Right Honourable Winston Peters.  Deputy Prime Minister, the Right Honourable Winston Peters has confirmed that he is keen to run again in the 2026 election, citing the need to finish the job they’ve started. The New Zealand First leader will be 81 when the next election comes around, but he spoke about legendary American investor Warren Buffe...

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 th...

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. T...

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 N...

In Leaders Getting Coffee episode 27 we take a close up look at how governments and local authorities spend our tax and rates money.   Our guest for this quest is Jordan Williams, co-founder of The Taxpayers Union, a purpose driven organisation established over ten years ago with a view to campaigning for better value for money from government spending.   Jordan graduated from law school at Victor...

In Leaders Getting Coffee episode 26, we are back into the topic of education, this time with an entrepreneurial CEO with a vision for a better world through education.   Dr. Jamie Beaton is the 29 year old co-founder of Crimson Education Group. He has carried a passion for education, borne of an entrepreneurial mother who hung her own university degrees, three of them, in his bedroom when he was...

Hard on the heels of the Paris Olympics, our guest for Leaders Getting Coffee episode 25, is Nigel Avery, Chef de Mission of our Olympic team. Inspired as a seven year old watching John Walker’s Olympic Gold medal race in 1976,  Avery set his sights on going to the Olympic games. He became one of those most unique New Zealanders who went on to represent the country in three very different sports,...

In Leaders Getting Coffee episode 24, we’re talking technology with the founder of one of New Zealand’s most innovative software engineering companies.   Like all good tech stories, this one started in a garage 14 years ago. That was when Danu Abeysuriya founded Rush Digital, a software development and engineering business that can be found working with numerous organisations in New Zealand and ar...

Forty years ago one of the most transformational governments in New Zealand history was sworn in. That government, led by the larger than life David Lange, who was accompanied by financial architect Roger Douglas, had the task of overhauling the country’s fragile economy. Sitting in the inner sanctum of that government was Dr Michael Bassett, who became the Minister in charge of a run-down health...

In Leaders Getting Coffee episode 22, we speak to the newly appointed Chairman of the Financial Markets Authority, Craig Stobo.   Craig is perhaps best known in investment and financial circles, and as a Chair of various and corporate organisations. But his leadership story runs deep – from mountaineering to the boardroom. His experiences across the financial and investment sector make for compell...

In this episode, we put a broadcaster on the other side of the microphone and meet recently awarded journalist Rachel Smalley. Some people become leaders because of the teams they lead. Others are leaders because of the causes they champion. Rachel falls into the latter category. She wanted to be a journalist straight out of high school, but her belated acceptance into journalism training meant he...

In this episode, our guest is the former Managing Director of advertising powerhouse Saatchi & Saatchi, Mike Hutcheson.   Mike’s advertising career started in the “Mad Men” era and continues to this day. He was one of the founders of Colenso BBDO and subsequently led his own firm Hutcheson Knowles Marinkovich.   He’s also a perpetual entrepreneur having founded businesses in home building, rea...

This week our guest is the former Member of Parliament and Minister of Health, Dr. Jonathan Coleman. Dr. Coleman spent almost 13 years as the MP for Northcote, and during that time was a key member of the inner circle in John Key’s National Party led government. During his parliamentary career he held Ministerial responsibility for health, broadcasting, sport & recreation, immigration and stat...

In Leaders Getting Coffee episode 18, our guest is the CEO of the NZ Olympic Committee, Nicki Nicol  Nicki spent almost 20 years with global giant BP where she worked around the world in a wide range of executive roles.  She returned to New Zealand and took up the role of Chief Financial Officer at NZ Rugby, where among other achievements, she led the Respect & Responsibility Review.  She subs...