INFINZ Awards: Celebrating the best in finance

Leadership Award winner Mike Daniell, with an F&P Healthcare sleep apnoea mask. Photo / Greg Bowker

The annual INFINZ (Institute of Finance Professionals in NZ) awards are the finance industry's opportunity to recognise its top performers. At the Langham Hotel last week, more than 800 people gathered for the naming of this year's winners.

CTPartners Leadership Award: Mike Daniell, F&P Healthcare

Fisher & Paykel Healthcare has gone from embattled underperformer to stock market darling in just a few years.

The medical device maker's shares fell as low as $1.89 in August 2012 as profits came under pressure from the strong New Zealand dollar.

Since then, measures including successful currency hedging, new technology launches and increased manufacturing at a lower-cost factory in Mexico, have delivered record financial results and a more than tripling of the share price to over $6.

Chief executive Mike Daniell said the currency pressure had been a challenging period to lead the firm through.

"But we developed a plan about five years ago to deal with that and to be comfortable with long-term elevated exchange rates for the New Zealand dollar," he said.

"Our results over the last two or three years have really reflected the success of that plan."

The company posted a 26 per cent lift in full-year profit to a record $97.1 million for the 12 months to March 2014. Daniell said his award was recognition of what the entire Fisher & Paykel Healthcare team had achieved.

"We've grown over the time I've been leading the business from a few hundred people to about 3000 and have achieved some great results with many more opportunities in the future," he said.

"I'm a somewhat reluctant recipient of these kinds of awards as an individual, but very happy to receive the recognition for the team."

Daniell joined the firm, then known as Fisher & Paykel Industries, in 1979.

He held a range of positions, including product design engineer, before being made general manager of the healthcare business in 1990.

Daniell became chief executive of Fisher & Paykel Healthcare in 2001 after the firm split from its appliances arm to become a separately listed entity.

Asked what had kept him with the company for so long, he said the technical side of the business suited his engineering background and its global focus kept things interesting.

"Our business is about helping healthcare providers to improve care and outcomes so it's a great business to be involved in," Daniell said. "Whilst we're New Zealand-based, almost 99 per cent of our revenue comes from outside New Zealand so there's always been a huge opportunity to be involved right around the world."

He said he took a "coaching" approach to leadership.

"For our business to do well, everyone needs to contribute," Daniell said.

"My role is to be the coach."