Sky TV founder Craig Heatley is en route to Monte Carlo to compete for the World Entrepreneur of the Year title as he is named on the Queen's Birthday Honours list. He spoke to NBR ONLINE.
Craig Heatley: For services to business: Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit
Sky TV founder Craig Heatley is en route to Monte Carlo to compete for the World Entrepreneur of the Year title as he is named on the Queen's Birthday Honours list.
Mr Heatley, 57, was today made a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to business.
NBR ONLINE congratulated Mr Heatley, who is in the US, working on a mystery venture that could be his best yet.
"I'm working harder than ever," Mr Heatley says down the phone line.
"And I'm not being cute, but I can't tell you much about it.
"I've had two big businesses in my life, and swore I would not start another one. But I'm working on one that is probably the best I have ever had."
Today's Queen's Birthday honour is out-of the-blue and a "bit of a dream", Mr Heatley says.
"I'm most delighted for my mother, who is 93 going on 94."
The honour follows Mr Heatley being named New Zealand's Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year 2012 - for helping to build what the judges said was arguably the biggest media business this country has seen.
The title will see him take part in Ernst & Young's global entrepreneur of the year challenge in Monte Carlo later this week. Some are saying Mr Heatley is New Zealand's best entry to the international competition so far.
He has made his reputation by building significant businesses from scratch.
Rainbow Corporation had its origins in in the Lilliputt mini-golf site in Taupo which he and a business partner hand built in 1979, morphing into the Rainbow's End adventure theme park. When Rainbow merged with Brierley Investments in 1987 it was valued at NZ$600 million.
Sky TV was one of the country’s largest start-ups when it was launched in 1987 and has since grown to have a market capitalisation above $2 billion and employs about 1000 people.
Mr Heatley says he's feeling positive about bringing a new venture to fruition.
Pressed for clues, he says: "It's kind of a paradigm shift in an area I have a modicum of experience in.
"But I'm still in the investigating phase."
Finding a niche
Mr Heatley was the youngest-ever NBR Rich Lister when he first made the list in 1986 aged 31. His worth was valued at $220 million on the 2011 list.
Growing up in Upper Hutt, he recalls his first job as an after-school paper round delivering 150 papers rain hail or shine.
His first entrepreneurial steps were taken in the property market when he was 15 - buying 10-acres in Foxton for a few hundred dollars which was successfully subdivided for a tidy profit.
Recalling the early days of Sky TV, when the paid-television channel was losing $1 million-a-week after the 1987 stockmarket crash, Mr Heatley said it was a challenge to convince New Zealanders to pay for something they were used to getting free.
He has also had involvement with INL, Kathmandu, Hirepool, Woosh Wireless and Masport in his corporate career.
Among career highlights, he says he is proud to have navigated various economic conditions over 40-something years in business.
Mr Heatley tells his four children there are more opportunities for them today than when he grew up.
"The barriers to entry are so much lower. Access to money is easier, and the internet allows vast numbers of people to start up in business economically.
"The economic environment is more conducive to innovation today in my opinion. But the bad news is competition is greater as well.
"And the average life expectency of a business in the last century was 30-70 years, Today it's less than two decades."
The competitive amateur golfer is chairman of the US Masters Press Committee a role that involves hosting events for golfers – like the conference for US Masters 2011 winner Charles Schwartzel this year. Mr Heatley also a trustee of the Michael Campbell Foundation, which offers scholarships for three young New Zealanders to meet and spend a week with Michael Campbell and his coach in the UK.
He has been a member of the New Zealand-US Business Council for 10 years and is a board member of the New Zealand-Antarctic Research Foundation.
