What is your background?
There has been a fair bit of variety. Started off at KPMG a chartered accounting firm. Went to the United Kingdom and worked at a few banks, British Telecom and a car retailer. Back to New Zealand and worked for Hewlett Packard, then Bendon and finally here at Scion.
So I have worked for organisations doing accounting, banking, telecommunications, cars, computers, lingerie and finally trees. All accounting led roles but a bit of variety with the industry.
What do you most enjoy about being chief financial officer at Scion?
The beauty of accounting roles is that you do have a lot of flexibility with the industry you work in. So if you take the time to understand what your organisation is involved in, it can be really interesting.
We are doing some really cool stuff at Scion. It is great to be part of an organisation that is making a real contribution to the region and New Zealand in terms of economic benefit and safety.
However what is also cool is that a lot of what we do at Scion is about creating "greener" solutions or products made out of trees, a renewable resource, that also provides a playground to mountain bike, walk or run in.
What do you find most challenging about your role?
Keeping up with the breadth of stuff going on but this is also what makes it really interesting. I think you get the most satisfaction out of things that are challenging so it makes sense that these things go together. I'm pretty lucky at Scion. I work with a great bunch of people at Scion.
Tell us about the new Forestry Innovation Centre?
The proposal is to build a facility to support collaboration within the forest growing, wood processing industries and Scion. These industries have a target to grow exports from the current circa $5 billion to $12 billion by 2022.
The Bay of Plenty has 35 per cent of New Zealand forest crop so has a lot of potential to benefit from this target. For it to happen New Zealand needs to process more wood into higher value items before they are sent offshore.
The Forest and Wood Processing Innovation Centre is here to support this target and may also support wood processing organisations setting up shop in the Bay of Plenty and bringing further employment opportunities and growth to the region.
Where do you see Scion in the next five years?
Scion is doing some really cool stuff at the moment. So my expectation is that in five years some more of this cool stuff will have been taken up by industry with the result the industry opportunities are improving.
It is pretty amazing what you can do with a tree - build a house, make fuel for cars and heating, make bio plastics and bio chemicals. The options and possibilities are really endless. The trick is making these options economic and we are definitely getting there.
Tell us three things about yourself that most people wouldn't know.
I'm an accountant. I am an open book. I have no secrets.
