Kiwis sell themselves short, director says

AUCKLAND: Kiwi businesses need to do a better job of selling themselves on the world stage, chairwoman and company director Mavis Mullins says.

Ms Mullins, who chairs farming and forestry group Atihau Whanganui Incorporation, is one of the speakers at this year’s Nurture Change Business Retreat in Hawaii, along with Dame Julie Christie, Eat My Lunch’s Lisa King and Rodd and Gunn chief executive Mike Beagley.

More than 200 business owners, entrepreneurs and managers are expected to attend the summit in September which mixes sand, sun and corporate success.

The event was started in 2015 by business adviser Zac de Silva and travel entrepreneur Steve Pirie, to help Kiwi business owners find ways to run their firms more successfully.

Ms Mullins, a fourthgeneration sheep farmer, has more than 20 years’ experience in governance in public and private enterprises and has sat on the boards of Landcorp, the MidCentral and Wairarapa District Health Boards, Massey University’s Council and 2degrees Mobile.

Speaking to The New Zealand Herald from San Francisco, where she is on a business trip, she said New Zealand stories had an innovative spirit and counted the likes of shoe company Allbirds as a Kiwi success story in the United States.

But she said that Kiwis were not the greatest at selling themselves on the world stage.

‘‘We often have that quality of humility about us which doesn’t always work, particularly in the American market, where you have to sell and believe in yourself and back yourself 1000%,’’ Ms Mullins said.

Nurture Change runs from September 14 to 19 and Mr de Silva said the time away from the office gave owners the chance to reflect on their business ‘‘in a tropical setting’’. — NZME