Business Leader of the Year Award: Mike Bennetts

Mike Bennetts' focus on staff, customers and shareholders has delivered dividends.

Today we begin a week-long celebration of excellence in leadership as we publish the nominees for the 2015 Business Leader of the Year.

Past winners of the award include Graeme Hart, Lloyd Morrison, Christopher Luxon and Rod Drury. The winner will be revealed on Saturday in the Weekend Herald.

Mike Bennetts has driven Z Energy since its inception and this year has been a particularly strong one for shareholders, with company's share price appreciating by more than 40 per cent as it has made its biggest play yet - a bid to buy Chevron's brands in New Zealand.

A finalist for chief executive for the year in the Deloitte Top 200 awards last month, Bennetts said then that he aimed for a "balanced scorecard" approach.

While earnings and profits have been up year-on-year, he says Z has also focused on customer satisfaction and employee engagement.

Bennetts has been a champion of bringing service back to the forecourts and improving retail stores as part of the overhaul of the brand. He's long been thinking about life beyond hydrocarbons, committing to a biofuel plant in South Auckland and last week announcing Z would install six rapid-charge electric vehicle charging stations at sites in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch by the end of February.

"If your people are fizzed-up and they know what to do to satisfy customers then that will lead to good shareholder returns," he said at the time of the awards.

Bennetts became chief executive at Z after 25 years with BP.

The Commerce Commission is considering Z's bid to buy Chevron's assets in the $785 million deal. The purchase would give Z about 49 per cent of the retail petrol station market.

Z claims 28 per cent of the transport fuels market against Caltex/Challenge's 21 per cent. Caltex turned over $2.24 billion last year, around 75 per cent of Z's turnover.

Bennetts has said leadership is a team effort. "All I try to bring to the table is to be myself. Nobody can be a better me than me.

"Generally people warm to having a leader they can connect with, somebody who is true to their own values and calls it as it is."