The Great New Zealand Road Trip: Nine Questions With... Sam Stubbs

The NZ Herald and editor-at-large Shayne Currie are on a two-week road trip to gauge the mood of the nation and meet everyday and notable Kiwis making a difference in their communities and the wider world. Today he meets a business high-flyer who has transformed a South Island town. We also catch up with Simplicity founder and managing director Sam Stubbs for Nine Questions With... and Wellington senior reporter Georgina Campbell meets a young couple who have set up a Cuba St hotspot.

What’s the one word to sum up your mood right now?

Excited. I think that, in spite of all the bad news around, New Zealand is entering a 30-year renaissance of growth and prosperity.

Why do I think that? Because in my job I experience, first hand, what KiwiSaver is slowly doing to New Zealand ie. making us capital richer, and allowing for long-term investment in the infrastructure we need. We have already saved almost $100 billion, and it’s just the start.

It’s a rising tide of capital, and like any rising tide, it’s hard to see happening day by day. But over the long term it’s a super powerful trend. I think New Zealand is pretty much where Australia was in the early 1980′s. Watch out for a long period where, most of the time, economic growth is a little stronger than expected.

What do you wish people knew about where you live?

I think people know and get New Zealand. I am consistently amazed by our rep when I go overseas.

But I don’t think many Kiwis get how cool the North Shore of Auckland is. In spite of there being hundreds of thousands of people here, it feels like a well-kept secret at times. On a good day, it rivals anywhere in the world.

What are your passions?

I’m a people person, so my passion is my family and friends. I can’t get enough of them. And my job has me meeting 5-10 people I didn’t know every week. As an extrovert that energises me, but I get that it would exhaust introverts!

Simplicity co-founder Sam Stubbs. Photo / Supplied

And I’m a curious person, so I just love learning. Podcasts, books, conversations, magazines, the media. I just can’t get enough information and news. I have a dream of filling a boat up with books and movies and sailing off, reading during the day and watching a movie at night.

Which New Zealander (alive or dead) do you most admire – and why?

I’m going to cheat and say two stand out.

Ed Hillary, for all the work he did in Nepal after climbing Everest. I was lucky enough to see the product of his labours there this year, and I came away in awe of the work he did for the Nepalese people.

And Michael Cullen, for implementing KiwiSaver. Seeing what it’s doing, and will do, will be his great legacy. Our kids and grandkids won’t know it was he who insisted on setting up KiwiSaver, but they will dine on the fruits of his tenacity.

What is your idea of perfect happiness?

A world where no parent had to bury their child, and no one died of hate, hunger or ignorance. Everything else feels a little like detail really.

What is your greatest fear?

I don’t have too many. I fear my kids hurting, however that might happen. But that’s the unconditional love any parent feels for their children.

And I do fear that we won’t give Kiwis the homes they deserve. A warm, dry home is the fence at the top of the cliff for social problems. Too many people are falling off that cliff. It’s not the Kiwi way.

What is it that you most dislike?

I really hate people not having the dignity of choice, because they are poor, oppressed or just in the wrong place at the wrong time. The randomness of that just sucks.

And I dislike it when wealthy people insulate themselves from reality and don’t bring their formidable talents and resources to help others. They could move mountains.

And I’m not sure that I like business people receiving high honours for making their pile and then donating what seems like a lot to charity or the arts. when it’s just a token of their wealth. I remember my ex-wife’s grandmother, who gave her life to service in the Girl Guides and knitted jerseys for solo mums, getting the lowest ranking national award one year, while a high profile businessman who made a fortune got a knighthood. That felt like BS to me. It should have been the other way around. And perhaps his award should have been for services to self.

Shayne Currie is travelling the country on the Herald’s Great New Zealand Road Trip. Read the full series here.

The Great New Zealand Road Trip heads to Palmerston North later today.

What is on your bucket list?

Helping make Simplicity one of NZ’s biggest KiwiSaver and fund managers, mortgage lenders, home builders, and charities. Minor stuff!

And then getting on a yacht in the Med and taking about 10 years to get home, having read all those books and watched all the movies :)

What do you hope/think NZ will look like in 10 years?

I’m a natural optimist, but a rational one. We are about to enter a decade of real progress for many, fuelled by technology, money and a younger generation that wants more purpose, more sustainability and more equity for all. They are smart, and empowered, and as a nation we will finally have the money to do the stuff we need to do.

We have huge natural resources and advantages, growing savings, and a better idea of where our collective energy will go. Get ready for a future better :)

• Sam Stubbs is the founder and CEO of KiwiSaver fund Simplicity.