David Kirk, New Zealand-born chief executive of PMP, walked off with the top prizes at the recent inaugural Australian Human Capital Awards in Sydney. Kirk won the CEO of the year category award and then pipped recipients of all the other categories to take out the overall leader of the year award.
Run by executive recruitment consultancy JML Australia, the awards recognise leading business talent and exceptional performance by people in leadership roles throughout Australia.
Alongside written entry forms and face-to-face interviews, JML also uses competency-based framework that it has designed itself. The 12 competencies include strategic and operational leadership, financial decision-making, entrepreneurial action and management of human capital. It also assesses each candidate on their trust and credibility, commitment and persuasiveness, executive disposition, strategic alliances, ability to create operational partnerships, read the organisational pulse and show initiative.
Kirk beat off senior executives from number of high-profile market-leading organisations including Nine Network, Macquarie Bank and AMP.
In spite of his many other achievements both before and since then, Kirk is still best known in New Zealand for his leadership of the 1987 All Blacks team that won the inaugural Rugby World Cup.
Business optimism highest since 2021 – research
Management Editorial Team
June 18, 2025
2degrees’ 2025 Shaping Business Study has found New Zealand’s business sector is the most optimistic it has been since the survey began in 2021, with leaders significantly more optimistic than
