During the Voices of the Future event, students wrote about Tony Nowell, the Founding Director of Valadenz and ABAC Member for New Zealand:

Biography

Although Tony embarked on tertiary education with plans to become a doctor, the rigors of University social life lead to a change in studies that saw him take up studies in Business and Commerce.

Upon completing his studies, a career in Hotel Management beckoned before the realisation set in that this kind of lifestyle left little time for balance and family. An epic career working as Director for L’Oreal in various parts of Asia was succeeded by similar positions in the Sara Lee Corporations’ Asian operations.

The turn of the millennium saw Tony and his wife decide to make the move home to New Zealand where directorship roles for Griffins Food Ltd and Zespri International Ltd were undertaken. Currently, Tony is the founding director of Valadenz, a company whose focus is to add value and growth to New Zealand export products through attempting to get exporters to work together.

Presentation

• View the presentation slides

A brief summary of the operations of APEC were given before Tony outlined the functions of ABAC in representing the wider business communities of each economy. In particular, Tony made reference to the way in which the wider APEC community saw New Zealand as an honest broker and that this perceived viewpoint allowed our country to play a much bigger role in ABAC discussions than what our country should let us do in relation to our relatively small size.

The presentation then moved to Tony’s career thus far as outlined above.

The final segment of the presentation, and perhaps the section that students found most insightful, related to this Business guru’s philosophies on leadership. According to Tony, the seven pillars upon which a strong leadership foundation is based are values, vision, consultation, decisiveness, execution, reciprocity and understanding culture. It was noted that the two areas where New Zealand business people lacked proficiency was in the areas execution and understanding of culture (the latter of these problems centering on Kiwi business people being short-sighted in the decisions that they make and not paying attention to longer term benefits). It was deduced that by using these principles in a measured and balanced manner in a leadership role, one could foster a habitat where holistic growth could occur in not only business, but also in a steady manner in civil societies and local environments.

Reflections on the presentation

When watching Tony it was easy to see why he is such a success. The knowledge he imparted throughout the presentation is definitely something that we can all carry with us for the rest of our lives. What can we say, it was epic. Cheers Tony

Quotes

If you don’t have a values system and you don’t have a vision that you can convey to the people working with you, then you ain’t gonna take ‘em anywhere