See also: NBR Rich List 2015 profile: Diane Foreman
NBR Rich Lister Diane Foreman, a business entrepreneur and soon-to-be published author, says the best way to help other women follow her lead would be to scrap the Ministry of Women’s Affairs and set up a Ministry for Entrepreneurship.
That’s one of the things she’d do if made prime minister for a day, according to “Diane Foreman: In the Arena,” which is to be launched on August 28.
The book is essentially a how-to guide to taking a business from inception, growing it, and then selling. The former EY Entrepreneur of the Year sold her global Emerald Foods ice-cream business this year and, after her book tour, is taking a break in the UK before deciding on her next investment.
From being a high school dropout and single mother of two in her twenties, the Aucklander got to run her own business after marrying Trigon Plastics founder Bill Foreman. After they sold that business, Foreman set up Emerald Group, a multi-million dollar global investment company that backed businesses including property, healthcare, recruitment, and food manufacturing.
While not considering entering politics, Ms Foreman said she’d abolish the Ministry for Women’s Affairs because it is actually marginalising and patronising of women. She would invest its $4.6 million annual budget into a new ministry that would encourage entrepreneurs who would, in turn, help grow New Zealand.
Foreman said the new ministry would need an entrepreneurial minister with a business background and a chief executive with private sector experience in setting up, running, and selling a significant business from New Zealand rather than a public servant.
“Perhaps this could be my post-ice cream appointment? Just kidding,” she says in the book, which was ghost written by EY communications manager and former journalist Jenni McManus.
Her ideas for the new ministry include establishing a formal plan for entrepreneurship to be taught in schools and assigning a successful entrepreneur to every school to work alongside the board and principal.
“A lot of entrepreneurs get to the age and stage in life where they want to give back,” she said.
A nationwide entrepreneurship challenge for university students could be run by the ministry, with the winner funded into an Ivy League business school and given a substantial interest-free grant, in the form of redeemable equity, to establish a New Zealand business on their return.
The government would be represented on that company’s board by a proven entrepreneur who could mentor and be involved in its development, she said.
Ms Foreman said former husband Bill Foreman was her main mentor. It was particularly important for women to have experienced mentors who encouraged them to build bigger, global businesses than they typically aspire to.
The ministry would set up an Entrepreneurial Fund to support other proven businesses in exchange for equity rather than the current taxpayer-funded grants currently available for eligible businesses.
She said only a business with a clear plan for executive growth and education, and with a proven entrepreneur on their boards, would be eligible for funding. A number of her businesses had benefited from taxpayer grants over the years, which she used to employ more people and buid the business faster. But the ultimate benefit when the business was sold went to her rather than the taxpayer.
“That’s wrong. Look at LanzaTech [now headquartered in the US]. It’s had significant government grants without a cent coming back to taxpayers. We’ve given that money with no accountability,” she said.
She’d rather see the taxpayer fund invest in entrepreneurial businesses with profits from dividends and the eventual exit of successful businesses being reinvested back into the fund.
Ms Foreman, who has been candid in the book about her own business mistakes, said Kiwis had to accept that failure isn’t a bad thing as the fund would not always pick winners.
As former UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher did, the new ministry should also give successful companies incentives to hire more staff by offering tax breaks on growth, particularly when hiring unemployed people who stayed in their employ for six months or more.
(BusinessDesk)
Fiona Rotherham
Sat, 22 Aug 2015
