NZ move not a matter of chance
SkyCity’s new boss tells Anne Gibson it’s no accident he came to this country
W ith his qualifications, new SkyCity chief executive Graeme Stephens reckons he could choose where in the world he works — and now, New Zealand is that place.
Living in New Zealand has been a long- time ambition, he says.
“When you qualify as a chartered accountant in South Africa, you can pretty much pick and chose what you do.
“I first visited here 25 years ago and wrote down my life plan: ‘ I have to live here’.”
The Zimbabwe- born Stephens has left the much larger Johannesburgheadquartered Sun International — a casino/ entertainment/ hotel business — to take over from Nigel Morrison.
Stephens’ appointment to SkyCity was announced in November; he took over on May 1 and since then has been travelling to company casinos here and in Australia.
Although the family has moved into their Stanley Point house, the furniture has not arrived, so he describes their current situation as “like camping”.
Stephens first visited New Zealand in 1992, for about two months as a backpacker on a four- year OE, walking parts of the Abel Tasman, Kepler and Routeburn tracks, unable to complete each full route “as we hadn’t booked ahead. I’d like to go back and do some of those tracks. I’ve never experienced real snow. I might be a little too old to learn to ski!”
“I come back [ to Auckland] 25 years later . . . it’s certainly woken up and become a very cosmopolitan city.”
Stephens’ father, Dennis, headed the giant Meikles hotel, supermarket and department store business in Zimbabwe, while mother Ilona was a pharmacist.
He has arrived at SkyCity during a period of great change, with the company spending $ 700 million on the International Convention Centre ( NZICC) and planning to spend A$ 300m in Adelaide.
Asked about the $ 110m cut in Fletcher Building’s latest operating profit — $ 40m of which one analyst has attributed to the NZICC — Stephens says: “We don’t have any particular insight into the Fletcher side of the equation. We are very happy with the work that’s been done.
“We don’t have any issue. We don’t see any material change in the project from our side.”
He wants to extend SkyCity’s presence in the Auckland CBD and make it more distinctive.
“There’s more to be done to position it appropriately. Federal St, is it completely done? I don’t think so.”
The NZICC opening about t wo years from now will free up existing SkyCity conference property between Albert St and Federal St. Stephens sees that as having entertainment capacity.
“How do we plug into our neighbours?” he asks, referring to wider entertainment offerings in the area, such as the Civic, Aotea Centre and The Edge.
As for criminals socialising in SkyCity’s VIP area, Stephens is adamant that company policies go beyond minimum requirements.
“If we look at anti- money laundering procedures and health and safety, I think the culture of the company is very much on the side of being conservative,” he says, citing as an example SkyCity’s hotel room sweeps for chemicals.
“We did not do that in South Africa. It would not cross our minds. The culture of this company is not just ticking the boxes in terms of compliance. The culture of the place is a zero tolerance for criminal activities.”
Stephens is enthusiastic about the challenges ahead.
Back on his home continent, he was a keen wildlife photographer and expects to miss Africa’s lions and rhinos.
For nine months during 2010, he travelled with now- wife Victoria through much of Africa, in “Stanley”, a Land Rover Defender.
“Outside of my family, I look back on my life and I see that’s the achievement I’m most proud of,” he says of the camping trip through remote parts of Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Malawi, Tanzania, Rwanda, Kenya, Ethiopia, Botswana and Namibia.
“We were on our own and often exposed to risk in parts of the world that were extremely difficult to get to — well off any beaten track, it was a lifedefining experience.”
On his second weekend in Auckland, he visited Hauraki Gulf jewel Tiritiri Matangi, returning enthusiastic about what he and the family found.
There, he captured images of bellbirds and saddlebacks. Pulling out a $ 50 note, he points to a kokako, delighted that he also photographed that rare bird. “We wake up every morning to bird calls in my garden. I didn’t anticipate that,” he says, describing how he has bought a weatherboard house, more than a century old, on the North Shore’s Stanley Point. And he is enthusiastic about understanding New Zealand’s flora and fauna. When it comes to capturing birdlife, he has one very specific goal: “You’ve got to focus on the eye and get the glint in the eye.” In his spare time, he is reading up on New Zealand: Gordon McLauchlan’s A Short History of New Zealand and Great Tales from New Zealand History, and a bird guide. He says he feels privileged to head SkyCity and is looking forward to getting to know more about New Zealand and Australia, and running one of this country’s top 10 NZX- li sted companies.
I first visited here 25 years ago and wrote down my life plan: ‘ I have to live here’ Graeme Stephens