Steve Culevski, the new general manager of Norsewood's Kiwi Sock Company is looking to help the business take a big leap forward.
Steve Culevski, the new general manager of Norsewood's Kiwi Sock Company is looking to help the business take a big leap forward.
Less than a week into his new role as general manager at Norsewood's Kiwi Sock Company, Steve Culevski was fronting for the company at the world's biggest hosiery trade show in Shanghai, China.
Keen to put Norsewood and the sock company on the world map and revitalise its products,Mr Culevski is already looking to expand the company's product range and market segments.
"I've some pretty strong ideas on what we can do to grow our business " he said.
Born in Macedonia, Mr Culevski emigrated to Australia at 6 with his parents. In 1993 he came to Wellington on a two-year transfer for a large multi-national company and very quickly fell in love with sailing in the harbour and the Pinot "over the hill "in the Wairarapa and was soon saying no to other overseas promotions.
The Culevski family is very cosmopolitan: Steve's wife Anne is from the United Kingdom, son Nathan was born in Australia and daughter Natasha, the only true Kiwi in the family, was born on Wellington Anniversary Day.
"Last Monday my wife became a New Zealand citizen and I'm considering making the same move," he said.
Throughout his career Mr Culevski has worked in senior management positions for large, multinational corporations in Australia and New Zealand. He quickly discovered New Zealand was full of small to medium sized, ingenious, creative, entrepreneurial companies taking on world markets and the Kiwi Sock Company was yet another fine example of one of them, he said.
He also readily acknowledges New Zealand's business ethos and reputation is highly respected by the international community.
Mr Culevski hit the ground running at the Shanghai trade show last week where there were more than 300 exhibitors and 30,000 visitors.
"Our new Norsewear 360 degrees printed merino socks created a real buzz," he said.
"There was an exceptionally high level of interest in them. And while a lot of the other major manufacturers have been talking about printing on merino, we were the only ones with socks on display and our order pad and pen at the ready."
