In Leaders Getting Coffee episode 41, our guest is real estate’s Martin Cooper, the principal of Harcourts Cooper & Co.

Most will know him as the man on television shouting “the North Shore, what a great place to live.” But Martin Cooper’s story started in Queenstown where he grew up and where he admits to taking the magnificent landscape around him for granted. He was not the most committed student, but he enjoyed sports and the outdoors adventures that his natural surroundings offered.

His father was a cabinet minister, and his work saw the family move to Mosgiel in Dunedin while Martin was at high school. Upon finishing school, and a couple of jobs that saw him away from home a lot, his desire to play senior rugby resulted in him returning to Dunedin and looking for a regular and local job.

That search led him to real estate, a business naturally suited to his energetic and charismatic personality. He found it tough at first, but after three years, he decided it was to be his career.

Despite the recession of the early 1990’s he established his own real estate business and, after a few tough years, learned that he was suited to recruiting, motivating and developing great people.

Success followed in the Dunedin market, but Martin soon found it hard to resist the opportunities afforded by a bigger market and he moved to Auckland, intent on establishing himself and his business on the North Shore. Again, he found the early going tough, but he’d been there before.

The result is Harcourts Cooper & Co, a 20 office, 480 person real estate business and a personal profile to match.

Martin Cooper’s journey is an inspirational leadership story. On the Leaders Getting Coffee podcast, he talks to Bruce Cotterill about building resilience through the tough times, the importance of good people, and of putting a little bit of Disneyland into the aspirations of his team. He speaks openly about the pressures of keeping his business going through the Covid lockdowns and the toll of a recent complaints process.

But the real value is in his view of how to be successful in a business that rewards success well. And of course, there’s plenty of advice on the state of the real estate market, and what lays ahead for first home buyers.

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In Leaders Getting Coffee episode 40, our guest is Lawyer turned Novelist, Rachel Paris.

Success is a recurring theme in the life of Rachel Paris. With degrees from Auckland University in Economics and Law, and the Law Society’s prize for the top law student under her wing, she joined one of the country’s most prestigious law firms, Bell Gully.

A spectacular law career in New Zealand and around the world followed. Along the way she completed her Master of Law degree at one of the world’s most prestigious law schools, Harvard Law. Her dissertation there was cited as ‘influential’ by the Wall Street Journal.

After her Kiwi OE via a law firm in London, she returned to New Zealand, quickly becoming a Partner back at Bell Gully where, she became an expert in Banking and Finance law in the free lending days before the GFC, and she oversaw much of the post-crash restructuring that became the aftermath of those heady days.

Uniquely, she put that career aside and left the law partnership, as her family moved to London, following husband Jason’s career at Vodafone. There, she created her own boutique law firm specialising in Blockchain technologies and supporting her global client base part time while organising a growing family in a new part of the world.

But, having returned to New Zealand, it is her latest adventure that is the most fascinating. A masters degree in creative writing back at her old stomping ground at Auckland University and now a new book. And not a book about the law or even blockchain. But a novel, a twisting turning thriller about toxic rich people behaving badly!

The book, published in New Zealand and Australia, is called “See How They Fall” and has already attained Number 1 Bestseller status, while a Hollywood production company has optioned the rights for the big screen.

During the Leaders Getting Coffee podcast Rachel Paris talks about her amazing career and the lessons in leadership she has learned along the way. We learn more about Bitcoin, Harvard Law School, and the importance of making an impact, while balancing a family with three busy children and a CEO husband.

And, as you might expect, there is both support and strongly worded advice for a government with plenty on its plate.

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In Leaders Getting Coffee episode 39, our guest is the brains behind the four day week, and Founder of Perpetual Guardian, Andrew Barnes.

Andrew Barnes survived the hurly burly of London’s investment banking world in the 1980’s, the result of which saw him sent to Australia to manage the exposures held downunder by his banking masters in the UK. He moved to Australia for a month and stayed for twenty years.

After returning briefly to the UK in the mid 2000’s, the GFC saw him head to New Zealand and a unique opportunity with the business that became Perpetual Guardian.

During the Leaders Getting Coffee podcast Andrew Barnes speaks to Bruce Cotterill about the lessons he’s learned from a highly varied career and how re-defining risk led to his ability to make better investment decisions.

Barnes came to prominence a few years back when his book, “The Four Day Week”, was launched during the covid lockdowns. Born of an article in the Economist, and time to think on a long flight, the concept of a four day working week and resultant improvements in productivity has been adopted by companies and countries around the world. His view that people can be more productive in four days than in five makes for a compelling conversation.

Barnes, who these days splits his days between the UK and New Zealand also offers his thoughts on the different challenges being faced by each country. He cites the failure of politicians pursuing a change agenda to “take the people along with them” as a primary reason for the unravelling of our once cohesive culture.

As for what he would do if he was Prime Minister for a day, his answer should be compulsory listening for every parliamentary MP.

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