Our super-cautious National Government, blown around too easily by the breeze of popular opinion – its flipping and flopping on overseas property investment being the latest example – might want to take a look at what’s happening in the “mother country” where British PM David Cameron is proving to be a man of action.
Many global companies are having trouble filling their senior management roles – yet despite this critical gap, they haven’t yet got their own pipelines for talent development sorted.
Here’s a thought for those focusing on what Auckland’s new Super City might end up like. By 2050, two thirds of the global population will live in cities. And, unless we get a lot smarter in how we run our infrastructure, city growth over the next three decades will generate about half the total amount of greenhouses gases the planet can handle if we’re not to exceed the two degree temperature increase expected to precipitate catastrophic climate change.
On a brighter note, there’s a hint of spring in the air and it has brought with it strong international demand for most of our agricultural commodities, says Jane Davidson, NZX Agrifax analyst. She says shortages in global supply of many commodities are underpinning prices at the start of a new season and prospects look good for it staying that way.
There’s a new breed of young managers with a different way of doing things, who are blowing the cobwebs out of the corridors of power. Thirty-year-old Scott Bartlett runs one of New Zealand’s fastest growing telcos, internet provider Orcon. “If we see just two or three percent growth per month, we’re not very happy, we need to see more,” says Bartlett. He operates a “tribal” business culture rather than the traditional pyramid office structure – he sees himself as the chief with the Indians (his 250 staff) in a circle around him.
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