What drives leading lights in sport, the arts and business
In the second part of our summer series profiling people making great strides in their fields, Virginia Fallon, Kevin Norquay and Sarah Catherall talk to an actor, golfer and businessman set for great things in 2023.
Jayden Ford, professional golfer
Jayden Ford’s summer will be far from cruisy – which is just the way he likes it.
The Porirua teenager is spending January competing around the country’s golf courses, setting the pace for the year ahead and following a very busy 2022. ‘‘I’m living the dream, I’m very lucky.’’
Now 19, Ford first picked up the clubs when he was about four and made his golfing name as a 12-yearold when he qualified for 2016’s NZ Amateur at Royal Wellington. The following year he made Wellington’s senior rep team and has since competed here and around the world.
He kicked off 2022 by winning Sydney’s Avondale Amateur Championship – his first win in a major amateur championship – and followed that up with three months playing in Australia before he and his dad headed to the US for six weeks.
‘‘Experiencing tour life together was almost better than winning the event,’’ he says. ‘‘Being there with someone who’s been there with me through thick and thin was great.’’
Ford was also one of two New Zealanders who made the team for the President’s Cup, the first time Kiwis have been chosen. Then there was the Asia Pacific Championship in Thailand where he tied for 29th in his first televised event.
‘‘It’s been a pretty cool, busy year especially after two years of doing nothing due to the pandemic.’’
This month he competes in both the Australian Master of the Amateurs and defends his Avondale title.
As for his goals, he’d like to win but more importantly he wants to be the best person he can be.
‘‘I’ll be keeping my head down and tail up, putting god first and always remembering where I’m from.’’
Jess Hong, actor
It’s hard to believe that Jess Hong was once so shy that she struggled to speak publicly. She started acting at high school as a way to build up her confidence.
‘‘I found that acting was a way to be more outgoing and I got hooked,’’ she recalls.
The 28-year-old is about to gain an international profile when a Netflix drama she stars in is released. Hong plays a lead role as Jin Chung, a physicist, in The Three-Body Problem, a dramatic series inspired by the writer Liu Cixin’s epic science fiction trilogy.
Auckland-based Hong is one of eight lead characters in the series led by Game of Thrones writers David Benioff and D B Weiss, and produced by Brad Pitt.
Hong spent nine months shooting in London and Florida, winning the role after getting a call-up and auditioning via Zoom while travelling with a children’s theatre tour around New Zealand. ‘‘I had sent these audition tapes through and I thought they would go into the void – and then I got the call.’’
The series is about the story of the first human contact with alien life and the conflict between the two species over many years.
‘‘This series is the biggest thing I’ve ever done. The writing is beautiful and anyone who loves Game of Thrones should enjoy it.’’
Hong – who trained at Toi Whakaari: New Zealand Drama School – has previously appeared in The Brokenwood Mysteries and sci-fi series Creamerie.
She also loves her stage roles, particularly comedy ones – she appeared in The First Prime-Time Asian Sitcom, and has featured on stage as both an actor and a dancer, including playing lead roles in Romeo and Juliet at Auckland’s Pop Up Globe, An Organ of Soft Tissue, and 48 Nights on Hope Street.
‘‘We’ve entered an age in the industry where diversity is sexy and people want to see a myriad of faces on our screens,’’ she says.
Jason Paris, Vodafone (soon One) chief executive
‘‘We’ve entered an age in the industry where diversity is sexy and people want to see a myriad of faces on our screens.’’ Jess Hong
Vodafone chief executive Jason Paris has high hopes for 2023, after a troubled 2022, with its storm of Covid, ramraiders and anti-5G protesters.
Through it all the company’s focus remained the same, he says.
‘‘Telecommunications has basically become an essential service now – if your teenager doesn’t have WiFi, it feels like their life has ended,’’ Paris says.
‘‘We take that pretty seriously, getting those basics right every time, of service price and connectivity, that’s our major focus.’’
This year Vodafone will rebrand to One, increasing the amount of money that can be invested in New Zealand infrastructure and services, rather than diverting it overseas.
Covid had changed how Kiwis used technology. That had been a massive impact on the network, and would continue to accelerate, Paris predicts.
While network capacity was built for 60% general use with bursts of up to 90% for major events or holiday hotspots, Covid created an average of the latter ‘‘pretty much overnight’’.
‘‘Our networks can cope with it, but it means that we’ve had to pull forward more capital investment because the data usage has had a massive leap … we need to provide more capacity for our customers faster than we had planned.’’
As well, cyberattacks are almost constant – more than 1000 a month – and costly to combat.
Foreign attackers are getting more and more sophisticated, and products are getting more complex. With the 5G network allowing more cross-device communication with multiple applications ‘‘it’s normally quite a gnarly problem that we need to address’’ when a customer has something go wrong.
For all that, Paris is upbeat about 2023.
‘‘These are challenging times internationally, we still think this is the greatest country to live on the planet regardless of what your political preferences are and who you voted for.
‘‘I still feel very privileged to live in New Zealand.’’