Ross Taylor, chief executive of Fletcher Building on what makes him tick. Photo / Michael Craig
Ross Taylor, chief executive of Fletcher Building on what makes him tick. Photo / Michael Craig
When Ross Taylor was shoulder-tapped in October 2017 to lead Fletcher Building some observers suggested it was the toughest job in corporate New Zealand.
The wiry Australian was called in to repair the construction giant's shattered frame after it lost nearly a billion dollars on big projects including the InternationalConvention Centre and Commercial Bay in Auckland.
Then, just when the business was looking like it was back on an even keel, along came Covid.
Most people know Taylor from his no-nonsense media conferences when he's had to deal with questions from staff lay-offs to wage subsidies to contract insurance.
But he also has a personal side and it's interesting to discover what makes him tick.
The father of four and Manly/Parnell resident says he recently watched the Cameron Diaz and Kate Winslet blockbuster "The Holiday", but "Notting Hill" remains his favourite movie.
He concedes his family mocks him for being a fan of the films like the recently watched romantic comedy set in Los Angeles and England, two women escaping ho-hum lives by exchanging homes, finding delightful and unexpected new romance along the way.
Ross Harold Taylor, a civil engineer with first-class honours from Queensland University, doesn't care. He laughs and shrugs. "Letters To Juliet", with Amanda Seyfried, is another favourite: "These are happily ever after. I get derided by my children."
From the top floor of Fletcher Building HQ, 810 Great South Rd, he heads a staff of around 16,000 here, in Australia and the Pacific and securely admits: "I love romcoms!"
Nancy and Harold Taylor raised Ross and Gary at Arana Hills 12km outside Brisbane "and my father worked on irrigation dam sites as a driller so he was out in the country". His parents split up early in his life.
"My mother worked in jobs when we were growing up because Dad left early on and had little to do with our childhood. Mum was amazing. She looked after the two of us and worked as a teacher aide during the day and for two nights a week worked the late shift in a bakery."
He went to Grovely State primary and in 1972, then Mitchelton State High where in maths he met wife-to-be Kathy, two years older than him.
"She admired my equations. I was very good at maths. She was one of the 10-pound Poms who came out to Australia from England. We dated at the end of school, split up for a year or two then bumped into each other again at a party. Love blossomed and in 1985, I was married at the age of 23."
The couple have four children: Jessica, 31, lives in London; Lachlan, 29, is a social worker in the Northern Territories; Rachel is in her 20s and lives in Sydney; and Callum, also in his 20s, is about to leave Australia to live in London to join a Spanish girlfriend.
The Taylors are adventurer holidaymakers, touring Africa, South America and even the Antarctic. He tells of he and Kathy "bribing" or "conning" the kids into holidaying with them by picking irresistibly adventurous options including African safaris, skiing and walking in Patagonia and Chile.
A boat trip to the Antarctic saw them encountering seas swelling up to 15m, being physically lifted by the force while lying flat in beds, "cabin staff crawling down passageways to leave trays of food outside the door."
