Business Stories
Stories about New Zealand businesses, startups and entrepreneurs building something worth noticing.
Charleez Chicken & Chips: The National Brand With No Stores of Its Own
Drive through provincial New Zealand and you will pass the Charleez sign in a dairy, a superette, a service station, a café or a bakery. None of those shops belongs to Charleez. That is the whole idea.
How Graeme Hart Made His Money and Became New Zealand's Richest Man
He left school at sixteen and became the wealthiest New Zealander who has ever lived. Graeme Hart made his fortune buying dull, essential businesses that the rest of the market had stopped paying attention to.
Off the Map: The Kiwi Businesses Google Barely Shows
The good local operators have not vanished. They are still busy, still the first name a local gives you. They have just become hard to find for anyone who is not already a local.
OCC Apparel: The Ethical Apparel and Merchandise Partner for New Zealand Brands
Buying one ethical tee is easy. Buying five hundred, and proving the label holds up, is a different job. OCC Apparel has spent twenty-two years, and a careful set of brand partnerships, learning to do exactly that.
Allbirds: The Kiwi Wool Shoe That Took On the World
A wool trainer from a Kickstarter, built on New Zealand merino and a Kiwi footballer’s idea, became a six billion dollar Wall Street company. Then it had to learn the harder half of the sustainability lesson.
Who is Les Mills? How an Auckland Olympian's Gym Became a Global Brand
Les Mills was the Auckland Olympian who opened a gym in 1968. He died on 29 June 2026, aged 91. The global brand that carries his name is what his family built from that room.
Made Everywhere but Here: New Zealand's Quiet Billionaires
New Zealand's largest fortunes were built offshore by its most private people. What that says about the country depends on how you read the silence.
Control, Not Scale: Six New Zealand Women Who Redefined Success
The default measure of success is scale. Six NZ women defined it as control instead, from building an empire to keeping a label deliberately small.
Fix the Product or Fix the Person: How NZ Fintech Founders Disagree About Money
Four NZ fintech founders, two theories of why people are locked out of money. One camp rebuilt the products. The other set out to teach.
30 Famous New Zealand Entrepreneurs and the Companies They Built
The founders behind Rocket Lab, Xero, Trade Me, Zuru and Allbirds. Our list of twenty famous New Zealand entrepreneurs and the companies they built.
Sell, Stay or Franchise: Three Ways a New Zealand Brand Goes Global
Five NZ brands, three routes to going global, and what each one cost. Sell, stay independent, or franchise the model.
How SYSCA Built a Global Youth Media Brand From New Zealand
How SYSCA grew from a Wellington university blog into a global, social-first youth media brand — and what other media founders can learn from it.
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