Rotorua Business Chamber: New era as Bryce Heard passes mantle to Melanie Short

Heard today, gone tomorrow: Rotorua Business Chamber chief Bryce Heard has retired. Photo / Aleyna Martinez

The Rotorua Business Chamber has been a crucial organisation for city firms since 1907. Connecting local businesses, they have more than 500 loyal members and are known for throwing the “best parties” in the industry. Today after eight years in the position chief executive Bryce Heard hands over the role to Scion’s Melanie Short. Aleyna Martinez reports on the end of one era and the start of another.

‘It’s time to ... give someone else a turn’

This isn’t the first time Rotorua Business Chamber chief executive Bryce Heard has tried to leave the role. In fact, it’s the fifth.

But each time, he told the Rotorua Daily Post, his passion for Rotorua and new projects that enriched the city brought him back.

Those projects include the CadetMax collaboration with the Ministry of Social Development.

“Our employers are very receptive to taking on school leavers, with NCEA or something like that but no experience and they’ll train them, take them under their wing and teach them to be a barista or a hotel manager or whatever it is.

“And they’ll bring them through.

“We now have over 110 employers in that leading employers’ group coming to the table,” he said.

He is proud of the work achieved with successive councils and governments over the years.

But he was disappointed he hadn’t achieved what he set out to do during his tenure, which was “to leave Rotorua better than I found it. I don’t think I’ve done that”.

He said homelessness and unemployment were still issues for the city.

Passion was a leadership quality he developed with age. “As you get older, it gets much more urgent to do all the uncompleted work.

“The further you get along that journey, the more you think about leaving a good future for those who are left behind you. The older I get, the more passionate I become about Rotorua. It’s my home ... It’s been good to me for many, many years.”

He plans to spend more time fishing and on his Kaharoa farm, breeding Hereford cattle.

“It’s a bit of a hobby ... I’ve always employed someone on the farm to run it while I’m working at the chamber, and the chamber pays me, and I pay the manager to run the farm.

“So I work in the middle for nothing. But I didn’t care because it was about happiness.”

Happiness was another quality he prioritised for his members and workers, “whether it was a team of over 1000 or five,” he said.

The five members of the chamber team operated with a sense of whānau at work, and allowing them to work independently had also made him very proud, he said.

“It spills out to the rest of our community.”

In his experience, leaders who operated with ego were flawed. He said disharmony was created when individuals were prioritised on a team.

“The opposite of humility is ego. Use humility, not ego. Do what’s right for the organisation, not for me.”

Speaking to the Rotorua Daily Post before his send-off this week Heard admitted he may shed a tear.

“That’s why I’m not looking forward to it, I guess.”

He hoped the next leader would continue to develop the good work of the chamber.

But he also acknowledged setbacks such as the Covid-19 pandemic and recession.

“We rang every member to see how they were doing and had some dramatic feedback from that after the event ... people who were so depressed...but the phone call [helped].”

Retaining a human touch in business was still crucial to the bottom line going into the future, he said. With only hours left in his role, he recognised his cue to make way for fresh energy.

“Even good leaders have their limitations,” he said.

“I’m plateauing. It’s time to go and give someone else a turn to take it on.”

He wanted young people to remember to be patient when setting off on their careers.

“I left school with just my School Certificate. I ended up with a wife and two kids in my early 20s, doing part-time study to make up for lost time.”

He advised job seekers in a city high in unemployment numbers that employers looked for energy, enthusiasm and intelligence. Hard work did pay off, he said.

“I had to do the mahi ... Once I did the mahi, the floodgates opened,” he said.

‘That conduit to the community’

Rotorua's Melanie Short is being welcomed in as the new chief executive of the Rotorua Business Chamber on Friday. Photo / Aleyna Martinez

Incoming Chamber head Melanie Short operates Velocity Valley with her husband Simon, who started the adventure park 26 years ago.

Together they’ve experienced the highs and lows of operating a Rotorua tourism business.

Short said she recognised Rotorua’s identity, rich in manaakitanga, as a good resource to tap into in business.

She planned to draw from her personal and business networks stepping into her new role this week.

She also loves her connection to the local volunteer syndicate. When Cyclone Gabrielle hit, she banded together with other Rotorua businesswomen to establish Manaaki Rotorua.

They provided relief and holidays to 90 cyclone-hit families.

“I was really proud of how the city got behind it, the council, my friends ... we had a great time too, and reaching out to these families and whānau ... It was the most satisfying thing I’ve probably done.”

She’s leaving her role as head of marketing and communications at Scion to take up the new role.

Short said good communications skills were “vital” as chamber chief executive.

“You are that conduit to the community and your staff, so being a confident communicator is really important.”

She looked forward to being the “advocate and voice for members” to the Government, Rotorua Lakes Council and Bay of Plenty Regional Council.

During her first 100 days, she planned to listen to chamber members and evaluate what’s needed.

She would focus on the chamber’s website as a portal into the work they did for the city and assess internal IT systems.

“I think about Māori business, our ethnic communities, and that’s what makes Rotorua a really vibrant community,” she said.

As a businesswoman, mum and wife, she recognised life could get busy. Operating a family-owned adventure park gave her an understanding of the struggles business operators faced when consumers had less money to spend.

“We understand to be able to come and enjoy these things, we want to make it really affordable,” she said.

As a woman in business, her connection to other women who understood the industry was something she valued as a professional.

“Doing the whole mum thing, you know, family, trying to get some exercise in, trying to help others and our community around governance work, so when we do get together, it’s a celebration.

“There’s the concept of the sisterhood, that elevating each other brings everybody up.

“So if we’re there supporting each other, then we can be the best we can, which provides space for everybody to move and improve.”

Aleyna Martinez is a multimedia journalist based in the Bay of Plenty. She moved to the region in 2024 and has previously reported in Wairarapa and at Pacific Media Network.