Value of a staunch helmsman

Jon Mayson says what he and Values campaigned for 30 years ago has become mainstream Government policy. Picture / Alan Gibson

What business does a 1970s Values Party leader, frequently incarcerated Springbok tour protester and stroppy pacifist have as a senior corporate warrior?

Jon Mayson, chief executive of the listed Port of Tauranga company, has plenty of business.

But now at 60, having overseen the rise and rise of Ports of Auckland's fierce rival from 1997 revenue of $44.6 million to $151 million today, he's about to give up the helm.

The maritime puns are a no-brainer - Mayson is a seaman up to his gills. The merchant navy recruit has been a tug skipper and harbour pilot. He represented the Port of Tauranga in the waterfront reform of 1989.

He was navigator on the square-rigged Endeavour replica that traced Captain James Cook's journey around New Zealand and to Australia in 1996.

And he piloted Tauranga's successful bid to host the "around alone" single-handed yacht race in 2003.

He came ashore in 1988 to get into operational management for the Tauranga port and ports industry reform and got hooked on business management, earning an MBA in 1991, becoming the port's operations manager in 1992 and chief executive five years later. In his spare time, he was a consultant to the Asian Development Bank and other advisers working on port privatisation and development in Southeast Asia.

On paper, Mayson and his CV seethe with contradictions.

He was born in Oamaru and raised in "the rural backblocks of Wanganui and Dannevirke", yet he hankered for a future on the briny and went to sea as a Union Steamship company cadet aged 16.

The son of life-long practising Christian pacifists, his high school days in the 1950s era of school military training must have been a teenage hell because he was forbidden to participate.

But Mayson found a sense of strong self-belief. He was militant "against a callous use of police power" during the 1981 Springbok rugby tour when Kiwis were "manipulated by a cynical administration". He found himself in police holding cells several times that year.

Chief financial officer Colin Boocock has worked with Mayson for nearly 30 years.

Boocock says the self-confessed pacifist is "a strong leader with strong beliefs and convictions about [the port] and a lot of other things in life too".

"He delegates authority extremely well. He expects those who have delegated authority to exercise it judiciously.

"He will support you with any decision you make - providing you didn't make any wrong ones. He is a team builder."

Mayson is also "strong-willed" and has a "superb" relationship with Port of Tauranga's staff, customers and the Bay of Plenty community.

Recently retired Port of Tauranga chairman Fraser McKenzie has also worked with Mayson for 30 years. "When we first met we were politically poles apart. He was Values and I was staunch National."

But the executive - "perceptive and extremely conscientious and fair to people who thought differently" - left his politics behind and got on with the job, McKenzie said.

Unlike some baby boomer executives who resile from their youthful political convictions, Mayson, who got himself ousted from a Shell tanker job in the heart of North Vietnam because he disagreed with the war, said he was right on.

The Values Party, founded in 1972, was "into sustainable economic growth and environmental issues and a need for New Zealand to have an independent foreign and equities policy". Mayson says that is now mainstream policy.

"If you had said to me some radical bloody greenie pacifist would end up as the CEO of a public company, I'd have said you'd got rocks in your head," Mayson says.

In Mayson's own words, he's "never allowed anything to hold him back".

"Taking it to Auckland" is a provocative term Mayson often hears about his style but does not embrace.

"It is an outcome, not an objective. We - and I use the word inclusively - are an organisation where teamwork is key to our success. We have a strong belief in [customer] relationships, we are motivated by anyone who believes we cannot achieve an objective."

A "negative driver to stick it to Auckland" would never achieve positive results.

Mayson is not sure of his exit date. But he expects to be around in the port company's Mt Maunganui offices until the end of the year.

"There's a lot going on and there is stuff I want to see through."

Number one outcome he wants to be around for is the announcement by shipping line P&O Nedlloyd and Fonterra on whether Tauranga or Auckland will handle the bulk of the dairy giant's exports.

The announcement, worth tens of millions of dollars of income to the winning port, is likely to be delayed because of merger negotiations between P&O Nedlloyd and the world's biggest shipping line, Maersk.

Mayson said the company had several other irons in the fire that he would like to see dealt with before he left but would not discuss them.

He attributes the Port of Tauranga's success against Auckland to "a strong belief in relationships and a 'why not' attitude".

Mayson always planned to be in the right position at 60 to be able to make choices for the rest of his life.

And that life so far "has just been an incredible opportunity".

Jon Mayson

* Aged 60.
* Born in Oamaru to Christian pacifists.
* Brought up in the rural backblocks of Wanganui and Dannevirke.
* A founder of the Values Party.
* Went to sea as a Union Steamship cadet at 16.
* Served in merchant navy, as a tug skipper and harbour pilot.
* Came ashore in 1988 to get into operational management for the Tauranga port.
* Earned a master of business administration degree in 1991.
* Became the port's operations manager in 1992.
* Appointed chief executive five years later.
* Has done consultancy work for the Asian Development Bank.