BEN KEPES Trailblazer

Words: Chris Hutching Image: John Kirkanderson

Tech-savvy Canterbury entrepreneur Ben Kepes has just deleted his Facebook account.

Kepes, 49, is best known in many local and international circles as a technology commentator, mentor and investor.

He quit Facebook because he doesn’t want to be ‘‘algorithmically manipulated’’.

‘‘The internet is amazing for communication. I can be quickly and easily in touch with so many people. I don’t like it when I’m being fed so-called news that’s designed to engage me positively or negatively. And it’s usually negatively. Like some anti-vaccine story.

‘‘I want autonomy over what I read. People need to know if they know they’re being played, and agree to being played. But that’s not happening.’’

Kepes’ technology-focused companies include Raygun and his family investment company Diversity.

His commercial roots are firmly in bricks and mortar through his clothing company Cactus Outdoor, in which he has a 70 per cent shareholding. He and fellow owners recently bought a complementary company, Albion Clothing. Albion has contracts to make uniforms for the fire, police and defence services, and also makes apparel that is sold by other companies, including Cactus Outdoor.

Cactus manufactures clothes and packs that are more expensive to buy than most imports, although they are arguably cheaper and more sustainable in the long run because the gear lasts for years and even decades.

What drives Kepes is not money – he says he’s not being falsely modest. ‘‘I spend a lot of time thinking about my personal legacy and my businesses. Life is really short so I just want to do some interesting stuff and leave the world a better place.’’

He is involved in several non-profit community organisations – including volunteer firefighting at Waipara, where he lives with his wife Viv, an artist who recently completed a masters degree in fine arts.

His board membership of social enterprise foundation Akina fits with his strong views about social¯ responsibility in business, which were part of the reason he won a Blake Leader Award in 2016.

‘‘Receiving awards is a bit of luck but it also means you have an obligation to do something so I’ve been involved in mentoring youth programmes.

‘‘When I got the Blake award it got me thinking about leadership and how I could help people reach their potential.

‘‘It’s really fun to spend time with young people and help their journey. I get as much out of it as they do. I’m nothing special in terms of knowledge but you start to identify patterns.

‘‘We need to think about who we are and show Jacinda’s kindness and empathy and how we can weave that into what we do every day and how can our businesses be exemplars globally.’’

He says he is staggered anyone could politicise the prime minister’s actions supporting survivors of the Christchurch shootings.

‘‘Leadership is about setting an examples and being inspirational. It’s not whether I’m a Labour supporter or not – it’s that she showed true leadership.’’

There have been other great and honest New Zealanders leaders, he says. But weaving empathy and kindness into the political stage for business and social welfare is going to be needed for future challenges like global warming.

However, he doesn’t think New Zealand’s future is to try to become a clone of Silicon Valley. ‘‘New Zealand is the most beautiful

country in the world. We have so much going for us. Why would we want to be something else?

‘‘We should be the best version of New Zealand we can. I feel sad when it seems we want to be a little America and discount what we already have going as a society.’’

New Zealand’s natural wilderness is one of its greatest treasures, Kepes says, and it led to his interest in Cactus Outdoors nearly three decades ago.

A keen ultra-marathon runner, he has run the four-year-old Old Ghost Ultra, an 85-kilometre trail race run between Seddonville and Lyell on the West Coast.

It was completed in 2015 and Kepes says it was the realisation of an almost decade-long vision of a handful West Coasters. They have created a community focused on the trail.

Kepes says that in a highly urbanised society, events and places like the Old Ghost Trail offer a uniquely Kiwi experience to reinvigorate the soul.

Unafraid to challenge the purist approach of Forest & Bird, he recently made a submission to DOC supporting mountainbikers using the Ghost trail so as many people as possible can enjoy it.

‘‘The world has changed so much,’’ he says.

New Zealand in 2019 is a far cry from Tawa in Wellington, where he was brought up and attended Tawa College.

‘‘It was conservative. It was the last place in New Zealand to be [alcohol] dry. There were more churches per capita than anywhere else. It was sheltered, middle class, safe. Central Wellington on the weekends was dead.

Everyone was in their dormitory suburbs. We’ve become much more urbanised and cosmopolitan, for good and bad.

‘‘In Tawa people mostly went to church and played sport on the weekend, neither of which I did.’’

It was an even more different universe for Kepes’ parents, who came from Hungary. They were Jewish. His grandfather perished in a concentration camp during World War ll. His mum was imprisoned but survived.

His parents left Hungary in a hurry 11 years later in the aftermath of the 1956 uprising against Soviet political domination. ‘‘We still have the single rucksack they left Hungary with. It was a case of grab your stuff and go. He was a doctor and had to retrain here. They went to Dunedin and were married.

‘‘Any second-generation Holocaust survivor takes something from that.

‘‘Back then, they had to give up their own culture for their offspring to become Kiwis, so I’m definitely aware of that.’’

His own late-teenage sons are making their way through their education and travel. With their independence, Kepes has the luxury of keeping his own timetable.

‘‘I made some decisions that have given me some freedom. I became involved in Cactus 26 years ago when I was an electrician and everyone said ‘don’t be ridiculous, why would you leave a trade’.

‘‘We shaped Cactus into a business with the usual boring administration and sales and marketing work.’’

He says making clothes at Cactus and Albion is a mixture of technology and craftsmanship. Robotic textile cutting machines have overcome dangers for workers having to wield a knife, and printing is more automated.

The craftsmanship at Cactus and Albion is part of Kepes’ environmental commitment.

‘‘At Cactus and Albion there are people who have spent decades lovingly crafting things. Any organisation has an obligation to honour people who make their products.

‘‘When I see fire service and army people in our uniforms I’m really proud from an ethical perspective.’’

Being geographically closer to those customers also reduces lead times for the design and manufacture of smaller apparel lines than global companies might take on.

Kepes is sceptical about many importing retail chains claiming ethical certification as justification for sourcing cheap clothing from factories overseas.

The industry locally in Western economies has been destroyed as manufacturing has moved further east from China to even lowercost economies like Bangladesh, he says.

‘‘The lowest anyone legally can be paid in New Zealand is the minimum wage. Ultimately, our government ensures treatment is ethical, and that’s a higher bar than some certification. I feel very strongly about that.

‘‘I think the tide is turning, There is a New Zealand brand committed to having local companies supply them and when they make that announcement in a few weeks or months I think there could be some gasps of shock.

‘‘Our future is about finding sustainable ways to minimise our environmental impact. So making a pair of trousers that will last 15 to 20 years by a craftsperson who is valued is a better way look at it, and ultimately better for people’s bank balance.’’

‘‘I feel sad when it seems we want to be a little America and discount what we already have going as a society.’’