Podcast appearances and mentions of simon moutter

In Leaders Getting Coffee episode 53, our guest is the former CEO of both Auckland International Airport and Spark New Zealand, Simon Moutter. Simon Moutter is one of New Zealand’s best CEO’s of recent times, with a track record of growth and transformation that few can match. As you listen to Simon tell his story, one of the things that strikes you is how logical every step seemed to be. He started his own business as a young man working within New Plymouth’s energy sector, but moved on to run power stations and eventually lead the power company he worked with. But it was at Telecom, where he was to make his mark. As he describes it, stepping backwards to go forwards, he quickly rose up the ranks to become the COO in Theresa Gattung’s well established leadership team. When Gattung departed, rather than push himself for the top job, he assisted the new CEO with the transition and left to run Auckland International Airport, a move that saw one of New Zealand’s most important infrastructural assets refocus around the needs of it’s wide-ranging customer base. Four years later, he was back at Telecom, this time as CEO, and hatching a plan to reposition a company that was once one of New Zealand’s most loved and successful brands. Despite advice from business leaders and customers, he led the change to Spark New Zealand, a change designed to reflect the move to the digital age. On the Leaders Getting Coffee podcast with Bruce Cotterill, Simon tells the stories behind those decisions in a way that provides countless lessons for everyone from young aspiring leaders to well established current executives. And the story doesn’t stop there. When a newly installed Prime Minister called, Simon Moutter took his skills to the country’s housing provider as Chairman of Kainga Ora. And so the Moutter transformation machine keeps on rolling. This is an inspiring and educational story about business, tough decisions, and how to be sure of turning those decisions into successful outcomes. Make sure you have your notebook ready.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

As you will have heard, the Salvation Army has released its 18th State of the Nation report and it paints a grim picture. New Zealanders are worse off than they were a year ago in terms of food security, employment, and housing, according to the data. Mike Hosking made the point this morning that the Sallies report seldom makes for good news. It's not often you're cracking the champagne going ‘well that's sorted child poverty – done, homelessness solved'. The Sallies are focused on caring for those who are struggling for whatever reason – for those who have slipped through the cracks, for those whose needs are complex and varied. But according to the report author, it's the worst set of results he's seen in six years of writing the report. This doesn't surprise me. Times are tough for people with jobs, without drug and alcohol addictions, with homes and children in education, you can only imagine how tough it is for people who have limited choices. The cruel reality of a recession is that when more people than ever before are looking for help, fewer people are able to give it. Government funding has been reduced, and people are finding it more difficult to contribute to charitable organisations. The number of people receiving income support in 2024 exceeded 400,000 —a record high— and unemployment returned to levels seen at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. Yes, it's called chickens coming home to roost. This is what happens after soaring inflation and enormous budget blowouts. It's awful, and it's hard, and it's painful, and those who are struggling already suffered disproportionately. Salvation Army Principal Social Policy Analyst and the report author Paul Barber spoke to Mike Hosking this morning and said a stable home is vital to the well-being of a community. “We've seen a really mixed story around homelessness and housing. We've seen a fantastic increase in the number of public houses, so social housing available to help people who are waiting for or need a home. But on the other hand, we've also seen a disturbing rise in the street homelessness, as people's emergency housing support's been ended. “Our view is it's important to be beside people, to help them get stability in their lives and to help people have their lives transformed. And what we see when social housing is doing well, that's exactly what happens, and in fact, that's why we strongly support increasing community and Kainga Ora government owned public housing, so that we can actually help people, help end homelessness. That's the dream and we've seen a lot of progress in that space, and we'd really like to see that continue.” Yes, we certainly saw Labour pushing out as many state houses as Kainga Ora could build in the last years of its government, and hopefully Paul Barber heard Simon Moutter when he came in to explain the vision of Kainga Ora last week. That they want to have a sustained building program that's not subject to ebbs and flows, that it's a sustained building program that will allow houses to be built for those who need them. Paul Barber said what we need is more compassion and more help for those people who are really, really struggling, and that is a lovely sentiment and what you would expect from the Salvation Army. But ultimately, it is not terribly helpful. Compassion doesn't feed a family. You can have all the compassion in the world for people who are doing it tough, but if you haven't got any money leftover in your pocket at the end of the week you can't do anything about it. And yes, of course more help is needed for people who are struggling, but help costs money, and where does that help come from? When a country is in recession, when people who do have jobs and pay cheques have less in their pockets every week, there isn't the money to fund the sort of programmes that Paul Barber is talking about. It didn't just happen. It's not as though there's been a change of government and all of a sudden there have been resets and we've decided that we don't care about people, and that we don't care about social housing, and that we don't care about homelessness. What we need far more than compassion is a productive, thriving economy so that people who can, can look after themselves. And people who can't, will benefit from assistance provided by a government that's got plenty of money flowing into its coffers through exports, through increased taxation, and from caring donors who've got more than enough and are happy to share. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The government's plan to stop growing its stock of state houses and slash Kāinga Ora's debt has come under intense criticism from political opponents. Kāinga Ora chair Simon Moutter spoke to Ingrid Hipkiss.

Kāinga Ora is focused on bringing down its building costs going forward. The Government is taking aim at its pricing - saying it is refocusing the state landlord on basics. A new review judged Kāinga Ora was paid about 12 percent more for building houses, when compared to the market. Chair Simon Moutter says the costs were partly due to higher design specs than needed. "Social housing does require some features that normal market housing doesn't - but it doesn't need to cost hundreds of thousands more, it should only cost low tens of thousands more." The Government's turnaround plan for Kāinga Ora includes cutting a quarter of its staff, removing new-home sustainability requirements and selling off high-worth state homes. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Kāinga Ora is focused on bringing down its building costs going forward. The Government is taking aim at its pricing - saying it is refocusing the state landlord on basics. A new review judged Kāinga Ora was paid about 12 percent more for building houses, when compared to the market. Chair Simon Moutter says the costs were partly due to higher design specs than needed. "Social housing does require some features that normal market housing doesn't - but it doesn't need to cost hundreds of thousands more, it should only cost low tens of thousands more." The Government's turnaround plan for Kāinga Ora includes cutting a quarter of its staff, removing new-home sustainability requirements and selling off high-worth state homes. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Government's shaking up social housing, yesterday announcing a plan to get Kāinga Ora back on track. They're set to sell off high-priced homes in an effort to bring its books down, the plan including the sale of around 900 homes a year. The money will then go to more low-cost, denser places with greater demand, as well as more single person dwellings as opposed to larger homes. Kāinga Ora Board Chair Simon Moutter joined Kerre Woodham to discuss what the changes mean for the agency and for those in need of social housing. LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

One of Kainga Ora's outgoing Board members says she resigned after seeing Sir Bill English's review of Kainga Ora, which she says was ill-informed and contained a large number of factual errors. The state housing agency's chair Simon Moutter announced earlier this week that five board members and the chief executive were leaving. Philippa Howden-Chapman spoke to Ingrid Hipkiss.

Now, onto the outgoing boss of Kāinga Ora and his $365,000 pay-out to leave - no surprise here, but the tone that's been adopted on that is that it's massive. Mega. Eye-watering. No it's not, that's tiny for a CEO. That's only half his annual salary, that's not a lot. When Tony Gibson quit the Ports of Auckland, he was on $820,000 a year, which is not that much more than the boss of Kāinga Ora - he got a pay-out of about $1 million. When Kevin Kenrick left TVNZ, he was on a salary of $560,000. That's less than the boss of Kāinga Ora and he got a pay-out of $2 million. Now it's not always apples and apples and I concede that, because there will be all kinds of weird little payments like holiday pay and bonuses and stuff like that in there. But the point I'm trying to make is that a payout for a CEO of only half their salary is us getting away lightly to get rid of the guy. And that is obviously what happened. It's pretty clear he didn't decide he wanted to quit, the new chair Simon Moutter sat down with him and clearly told him to quit - Simon didn't even try to deny that when he was on the show with us last night. If you're basically going to fire someone at CEO level, this is small change to get the job done. Now, as for this nonsense about him being given redundancy because the scope of his job had changed - that's just BS. That's just the technicality they've used to get rid of the guy. Because he had to go. He ran an organisation that refused to evict thugs, that ran up huge amounts of debt, that that bid and paid way more than market value for property and  frankly lost the confidence of the public. I don't want to be spending nearly $400,000 of taxpayer money on something like this, but to get rid of a CEO who needs to go, I reckon we got away lightly. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

State housing provider and developer Kainga Ora is losing its chief executive and most of its board, as the government's plans for social housing remain unclear. The chief executive, Andrew McKenzie, has resigned - and will get 365-thousand dollar payout. And five of seven board members are also going. Chair of Kainga ora, Simon Moutter spoke to Ingrid Hipikiss.

Kāinga Ora's Chief Executive Andrew McKenzie will be stepping down at the end of October, with a $365,000 payout. A review has found the state housing provider needs significant savings to be financially viable. Kainga Ora Chair Simon Moutter says it's the right time. "Given the extent of change going on in this organisation with the changes through the Government's budget allocations to KO and the findings of the independent review...it was only right." LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Kāinga Ora's Chief Executive Andrew McKenzie will be stepping down at the end of October, with a $365,000 payout. A review has found the state housing provider needs significant savings to be financially viable. Kainga Ora Chair Simon Moutter says it's the right time. "Given the extent of change going on in this organisation with the changes through the Government's budget allocations to KO and the findings of the independent review...it was only right." LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Clothing company Designer Wardrobe is closing its stores in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch.  The buy-sell-rent-businesses Chair is blaming the Government's so-called "unclear" pandemic timeline for the decision.  Simon Moutter says if there was certainty stores could reopen in December - they would have kept their physical stores.  Moutter told Heather du Plessis-Allan the Government doesn't understand the cash-burn caused by lockdown. “Access to capital is very fragile for a small-medium business and therefore, without certainty you simply can't access it." Designer Wardrobe will still operate its online store. LISTEN ABOVE

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Catholic cross-emblazoned knights on horses have been scrapped from the Crusaders' pre-match entertainment, after the Christchurch mosque attacks.The Canterbury team have been considering moving away from the association with the Crusades, a religious war started by the Latin Church against Muslims.Today, they've announced the Crusaders Horsemen won't feature in the rest of this year's games, including this weekend's match.And the team have engaged Research First to look at two options for their future: keeping the Crusaders name, but changing the imagery of knights on horseback - or scrapping the name in a complete rebrand.NZ Rugby boss Steve Tew says maintaining the status quo is no longer an option, as the association with the religious Crusades is too strong.Also today, how the markets reacted to the shock departure of Simon Moutter from Spark, and why are so many New Zealanders still being scammed online? Hosted by Juliette SivertsenSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Simon Moutter, Managing Director of Spark, says he is confident his company will deliver a quality RWC in 2019 despite issues faced by Optus in Australia over the weekend.LISTEN ABOVE AS SIMON MOUTTER SPEAKS WITH THE RADIO SPORT BREAKFAST TEAM

Simon Moutter (Mooter), Managing Director of Spark, says he is confident his company will deliver a quality RWC in 2019 despite issues faced by Optus in Australia over the weekend.LISTEN ABOVE AS SIMON MOUTTER SPEAKS WITH THE RADIO SPORT BREAKFAST TEAM

The cost of seeing every match of next year's Rugby World Cup is likely to be about $100.Spark and TVNZ have secured joint rights to broadcast next year's tournament.TVNZ will show seven games live and free including the final, while Spark will stream all games online to paying subscribers.Spark chief Simon Moutter told Radio Sport a full tournament pass is likely to sell for about $100 per user."We will create cut down versions, even a per-game price so you can watch just a single match."It's possible some All Blacks matches will not air at all on conventional TV.LISTEN TO SIMON MOUTTER TALK WITH RADIO SPORT BREAKFAST ABOVE

The cost of seeing every match of next year's Rugby World Cup is likely to be about $100.Spark and TVNZ have secured joint rights to broadcast next year's tournament.TVNZ will show seven games live and free including the final, while Spark will stream all games online to paying subscribers.Spark chief Simon Moutter told Radio Sport a full tournament pass is likely to sell for about $100 per user."We will create cut down versions, even a per-game price so you can watch just a single match."It's possible some All Blacks matches will not air at all on conventional TV.LISTEN TO SIMON MOUTTER TALK WITH RADIO SPORT BREAKFAST ABOVE

Spark chief executive Simon Moutter says getting in tune with your market is a major benefit from diversity. Read more ($): https://www.nbr.co.nz/article/champions-change-launch-framework-diversity-reporting-fr-p-203540