Leaders Getting Coffee with Bruce Cotterill

In Episode 68 of Leaders Getting Coffee, our guest is former All Black captain and New Zealand First candidate, Taine Randell.
He was appointed captain of the Otago NPC rugby team in 1995 at the age of 19 and All Blacks captain by the time he was 23. Taine Randell says he was lucky, but to plenty of observers, he was a young man with something special about the way he played and the way he led others.
He grew up in the Hawkes bay, and after many years in Dunedin and then London, he and his family have been back there for the last 18 years.
Despite hanging up his professional rugby boots some twenty years ago, he’s still coaching and even occasionally playing the game that he loves.
But business has been his focus since returning home, and he’s built and sold a family owned business as well as working in governance roles to support local businesses and the region at large.
Earlier this year Taine Randell announced his decision to enter politics and he’ll be contesting this year’s general election as a NZ First candidate.
On the Leaders Getting Coffee podcast, Taine Randell speaks about the fact that rugby wasn’t a career option until professionalism arrived on the scene just as he did. And he discusses playing with his heroes in a rugby career that surpassed even his own expectations and a couple of losses that obviously still hurt. There’s also an extensive life in business since stepping off the field.
Thereafter, the aspiring politician talks to Bruce Cotterill about his aspirations for the country and the reasons he’s putting his hand up for another step in his leadership journey. He has plenty of good ideas too, and we can expect a very active champion for the small business community.
And of course, on the eve of the All Blacks very challenging assignment in South Africa, he has plenty of advice about what his former team are up against and even a prediction of what the outcome might be.
Leaders Getting Coffee – Episode 68 with Bruce Cotterill and Taine Randell
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In Leaders Getting Coffee episode 67, our guest is Amelia Linzey, Group CEO of Engineering firm Beca.
Amelia Linzey has broken the mould in more ways than most of us. Firstly, if we think of large-scale infrastructure engineering as a ‘mans world’, then she has truly broken that particular glass ceiling. But her other main attribute is stickability. In an environment where change is rapid and people move jobs with regularity and ease, she’s been with the same company for thirty years.
She grew up on Auckland’s North Shore, studied geography, and after a brief stint in Council planning, she joined the engineering firm that has been her home ever since.
She’s a highly qualified and well regarded planner and social impact specialist. And she worked “on the tools” gradually leading larger projects for over 25 years, before the CEO suite came calling.
During the Leaders Getting Coffee Podcast Amelia speaks about that wonderful career that shows no sign of slowing down just yet. She is open about the challenges she’s faced and the broader range of opportunities for young engineers today.
But it is the scale of the work that Beca does that grabs our attention. From an electrical transmission project in New South Wales, to massive integrated resort and office precinct in Singapore, climate resilience work in the Pacific and a giant water infrastructure project in Melbourne, the work is large scale infrastructure with big budgets and big pressures.
But she seems to handle it all in her very brisk stride.
As you might imagine, Amelia Linzey has a unique perspective on New Zealand’s infrastructure deficit and she speaks with Bruce Cotterill about how we might go about gradually correcting the underinvestment of the past. It’s a massive advantage that we have the knowledge right here in this country, with people who know a lot about building hospitals, water infrastructure, electricity generation and tourism venues.
This is a great discussion that captures many variables. It’s a story of a working mum with an outstanding career, and a commentary on infrastructure construction for today and the future.
Leaders Getting Coffee – Episode 67 with Bruce Cotterill and Amelia Linzey
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We’re half way through the year and “dry July” is underway. So what better time to talk about health, nutrition and diet?
In Leaders Getting Coffee episode 66, our guest is Professor Caryn Zinn, Professor of Nutrition at Auckland University of Technology (AUT).
Her story starts in South Africa, where she was born, and her early University studies were conducted in Cape Town. Upon graduation, she moved to New Zealand for what she thought would be a period of time. But it was to become her life.
Her first job here was as a public health dietician in Whangarei, but academia called and a Master’s degree focusing on Sports Nutrition and a PhD centred on weight loss followed.
A chance engagement in 2014, challenged her conventional nutrition paradigm, and she developed her own nutrition philosophy in light of the emerging science on insulin resistance and metabolic health. Her journey endured multiple challenges from the change resistant establishment, but her conviction ensured that she prevailed. She is now regarded as one of the most recognised leaders in therapeutic carbohydrate reduction, both in New Zealand and abroad.
Professor Zinn speaks openly about the challenges of leading pioneering change in a sector that often prefers the comfortable route. But her story is compelling and like any scientist who “follows the evidence” her approach is now well accepted.
During the Leaders Getting Coffee podcast, Caryn Zinn speaks to Bruce Cotterill about how a team effort led to the publication of not one, but five books resulting from their research, including the highly regarded “What the Fat?” Her writing has introduced hundreds of thousands of readers around the world to the low-carb, healthy-fat way of eating.
There is plenty of discussion about what’s right and wrong with our diets, how we can be better, and how to get help if we need it. There’s also an interesting discussion about how supplements can support our lifestyles and some common sense advice around alcohol consumption.
But most of all, this is a story about a high achiever who dared to believe that another way was possible, and in fact better, and who committed herself to changing attitudes and outcomes in a world challenged by change.
Leaders Getting Coffee – Episode 66 with Bruce Cotterill and Professor Caryn Zinn
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In episode 65 of the Leaders Getting Coffee podcast, our guest is the veteran Political Journalist Barry Soper.
Barry Soper is our most seasoned, and arguably most respected political correspondent. He’s covered the premierships of twelve Prime Ministers, all of them very different, across five decades.
It’s a story worthy of a book, and his newly released political memoir entitled “One Last Question, Prime Minister” doesn’t disappoint.
But his life could have been so different. When he pulled out of Police College in his late teens, his mother had a job lined up for him, as a tractor salesman. But an accidental conversation with a correspondent from the local paper, changed his trajectory and his fortunes and a lifetime in journalism was born.
He went on to work with many of the provincial newspapers across the country, and after an OE full of stories that only a man of his experience can tell, he returned to a broadcasting career that continues to this day.
On the Leaders Getting Coffee podcast, Barry talks to Bruce Cotterill about all twelve of those Prime Ministers. His role has enabled him to get to know them all well, he’s travelled with them, and seen them up close in electoral victory and defeat.
He shares those experiences openly, and with a sense of humour that only the best story tellers can deliver. You might expect him to have strong and well informed views on some of our best and worst Prime Ministers. You might not expect him to be so open in sharing those views.
As this election year gathers steam, this is an opportunity to hear from a man who has been as close to the political action as it’s possible to be. It’s a insightful analysis of the progress this country has made over the last fifty years, and the people who have led us.
The book again. “One Last Question, Prime Minister” by Barry Soper.
Leaders Getting Coffee – Episode 65 with Bruce Cotterill and Barry Soper, Newstalk ZB’s Senior Political Correspondent.
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What does it take to help build world champions?
In Episode 64 of Leaders Getting Coffee, Bruce Cotterill sits down with David Abercrombie – former All Blacks physiotherapist, former CEO of Yachting New Zealand, and one of the people who has worked behind the scenes of some of New Zealand's greatest sporting achievements.
Over a Physiotherapy career spanning more than three decades, David has treated elite athletes across rugby, sailing, basketball and Olympic sport. He was part of the All Blacks environment during one of the most successful eras in New Zealand rugby and worked alongside some of the country's most iconic sporting figures. He was on the spot for, Michael Jones injured knee, Zinzan Brooke’s famous dropped goal, and he kept Sir Peter Blake’s elbows working in San Diego. Four medals in one day’s sailing at the Rio Olympics remains a special memory.
Born in Scotland and raised on Auckland's North Shore, David's journey took him from a young physiotherapist helping establish North Harbour Rugby's sports medicine programme alongside his great mate Dr John Mayhew, to becoming one of the most respected practitioners in New Zealand sport. Later, when the physical demands of physiotherapy forced an unexpected career change, he successfully reinvented himself as CEO of Yachting New Zealand, leading that organisation through 15 years of transformation and Olympic success.
In the Leaders Getting Coffee podcast, David shares remarkable stories from inside the All Blacks, the America's Cup and New Zealand's Olympic sailing programme. He reflects on the pressure of elite performance, the evolution of professional sport, and how the sport of sailing is changing with the introduction of foiling, women joining men’s crews, the rise of SailGP, and the leadership lessons learned from working with some of the world's best athletes and teams.
This is a conversation about far more than sport. It's about excellence, resilience, reinvention and what it really takes to perform at the highest level.
If you love sports, you’ll enjoy this conversation. But it’s much more than what happens on the field or in front of the TV camera. David Abercrombie brings a genuine insight to our sporting stories and a behind the scenes glimpse into the factors behind sporting success.
Leaders Getting Coffee – Episode 64 with Bruce Cotterill and David Abercrombie.
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