Prue Halstead was recently named as Otago-Southland’s representative on the Institute of Directors’ 2022 Mentoring for Diversity programme. The proud Southlander talks to business editor Sally Rae about life in the South.
They say home is where the heart is.
But returning to live and work in Southland was never originally part of Prue Halstead’s long-term plan, nor did she ever expect to be running a private equity fund in Invercargill.
Having grown up on a farm in the region, she recalled the disparaging cartoons saying "last one out of Invercargill, please turn out the lights".
That stuck with her; there was a sense of embarrassment about where she came from "because no-one talked positively about it".
Now that was a strong driver for her in helping create a Southland - and neighbouring Otago, to which she also had a strong affinity - that her three children wanted to come back to.
"They may never come back but I want them to have that choice," she said.
She described her own career as "various haphazard methods of generating opportunities" - from helping protect the Olympic brand at the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games, to working in finance in the Channel Islands.
For the past 14 years, she has been back where it all began in Southland. Unashamedly passionate about the region, she is equally animated about the possibilities and potential it holds.
Ms Halstead grew up on a farm at Waianiwa with two younger brothers. After boarding school in Dunedin, she studied at the University of Otago, both experiences cementing a strong fondness for the city.
She realised in the fairly early stages of studying law that she did not want to be a lawyer, but she was very interested in the subject as a general business degree.
She completed an honours degree in arts, majoring in German, and moved to Wellington with her now husband, finishing her law degree at Victoria University.
Becoming a judge’s clerk was "the most amazing opportunity" but she was still not convinced she wanted to do anything in law.
In 2000, thanks to a connection through a contact, she got a job with the organising committee at the Sydney Olympics in the brand protection team, helping to prevent counterfeiting of the Olympic brand and protect against ambush marketing.
Those Olympics were the year before the September 11 terrorist attacks in the US and, on reflection, she believed it was "the heyday" - "the last days of innocence ... running an event that size". Organisers were not thinking about global warming or climate change, terrorism or the threat of a pandemic. It was a much simpler time.
From there, she continued to work in Sydney, where she was helping New Zealand exporters, before moving to the Channel Islands for three and a-half years.
Given the types of roles she had previously had, it was a "pretty challenging" place to get a job, but she found work in the finance industry.
Living in a beautiful part of Europe, which had a strong Australian and New Zealand community, afforded a great lifestyle - she fondly recalled watching the sun go down at the beach, around a Kiwi barbecue.
Returning to New Zealand, Ms Halstead worked at Chapman Tripp in Wellington, doing public law, before moving to Auckland.
But her Hamilton-born husband always felt a strong connection to the South and maintained there were huge opportunities there.
While she could never see a job that would fit her, she knew the couple - who had a family under way - would have more children, and it would be a good time to "give it a go", knowing she could always retrain.
The rest, as the cliche says, was history and the family had now lived in the South for 14 years, the longest she had stayed anywhere.
She had absolutely no regrets, as she discovered the opportunities, connections, people and relationships were "extraordinary".
She had been the type who told friends if they ever heard she was going to move back to Southland then "clearly something’s terribly wrong" - when she told them she was moving home, "they were all, what’s taken you so long?"
Many urban dwellers in Auckland and Wellington asked her where she was going to get intellectual stimulation - but nothing could have been further from the truth, she said.
Never part of her long-term plan, the move was driven by her husband’s desire to live a different life.
"I’m just so grateful every day that we gave it a shot," she said.
Ms Halstead is the executive officer of Invest South, an investment fund which supports local business seeking capital and expertise for growth. Its sole investor is the Community Trust of Southland.
Its board was made up of experienced directors who collectively covered a diverse range of industries and experience, and was available to introduce new skills, ideas, contacts and a potentially broader industry perspective, she said.
She worked closely with management teams of investor companies, helping them to define the vision, planning and execution linked to their strategic direction. Her focus was to enable outcomes required for commercial success.
The reason she applied for the role was a desire to see Southlanders - "or anybody" - have the ability to buy into, or own, a business in Southland.
If the right foundation for that was not created now, then in the future everything would "be sold off to multinationals and nationals".
While there was nothing wrong with those businesses, she was a strong believer in having all types of businesses in business ecosystems; from corporates to small one-man or woman bands.
Change in Invercargill had been coming for about five years; there was a real step change and there was realisation from those involved in the regional development strategy that they could have an impact.
She recently visited the city centre - where the first stage of Invercargill Central was formally opened - and felt an extraordinary amount of pride and astonishment at what could be achieved.
People in Southland did not give up, Ms Halstead said.
"We just get on and do things here ... So many people around here just get on and do things."
She believed people living in Southland comprised three types - those strongly embedded in the region, whose families had been there for generations; those who moved to the region and became just as passionate about it; and those who "came and left".
And she accepted it did not suit everybody.
"We’re used to people throwing mud - literally. We do get very defensive," she said.
There was growing pride in the area, and so many projects going on - such as hydrogen and data centres.
"Everywhere you turn there are opportunities - it’s almost too much for people at the moment".
What had been a real change was less talk about the closure of Tiwai Point aluminum smelter. It used to be a case of "what are we going to do now?" but now it was "here are all the things we can do", she said.
"The sky’s the limit, really. All we need is people," she said.
The region offered an amazing lifestyle, along with proximity to the likes of Queenstown, the Catlins, Riverton and Stewart Island.
She was proud to be on the board of Invercargill Airport, and said the ability to get a jet plane direct to Auckland meant Invercargill was "incredibly well-connected" for a regional town.
"It’s got all the right ingredients to really supercharge this next stage of the journey," she said.
She was also on the board of Coin South, a membership-based investment and support network which she was involved with establishing in 2019 as the "go-to" in the region for start-ups.
The aim was to equip entrepreneurs with the skills, network and funding needed to grow sustainable and successful high-growth businesses from Southland. The initiative was rooted in the objectives of the Southland regional development strategy.
The three-year pilot had been very successful and now Coin South was starting to decide what the next three to five years, and out to 10 years, would look like.
It had worked closely with Startup Dunedin and Startup Queenstown-Lakes and that strong collaboration was something she was particularly proud of.
In a similar vein, she was also on the board of Mainland Angel Investors, a network of angel investors across Otago and Southland that launched in 2020.
Its establishment was driven by the recognition of a potential gap in the investment ecosystem; it was harder to raise money in the South, she said.
She was also on the Angel Investment New Zealand executive committee and chaired a small but fast-growing start-up in the South.
When it came to her governance career, it began with the local kindergarten association and various other not-for-profits, like many other Kiwis.
Her recent appointment to the airport board was the "nice icing on the cake" for her, bringing her business and commercial experience, and networks, to help govern such a strategic asset for the region.
At Invest South, it was an "incredible privilege" to be involved in some of the businesses it invested in, and that was something she did not take lightly.
Her role meant she worked very closely with both management and boards and she had a unique perspective across nine or 10 different industries.
Invest South’s was very supportive of her doing the Institute of Directors’ (IoD) company directors’ course last year.
That curiosity for how interpersonal dynamics worked was what "really lights my fire" around governance, she said.
She was fortunate the airport board was very experienced and came with the great insights and dynamics of a small board, and she felt very supported and was "learning every day from these extraordinary individuals".
She was delighted to be Otago-Southland’s recipient of the Mentoring for Diversity programme, which would provide her access to wisdom, experience and insights.
IoD was an "incredibly supportive network" and, since it was announced, the number of people who had taken time to contact her was both humbling and heartwarming.
She believed there was still a long way to go in developing a good governance pathway for regional players.
Southland businesses were not necessarily going to attract people from further north to run a small business and there had to be a "halfway house".
It was difficult in the South for people to observe and learn about governance and get access to it. She typically received one or two calls a month from people wanting to know how to break into governance and how to observe different boards.
She did not believe in the work-life split, saying they were entwined. While it was not always easy, she was grateful for the support that enveloped her.
"I’m not one of those people who think that it’s easy to have it all and do it all. I’m very aware of where my limits are.
"Some people disagree and say I don’t know how to slow down or relax. I have my own way of doing it," she said.
Her husband was "incredibly supportive", while and having her parents and brother and sister-in-law in the South was also very helpful.
"It does come down to having a supportive family ... I’ve been able to chase the sorts of things I love doing because I’ve got people around me that support me and friends who are always there and always check in."
And her mantra had always been "one foot in front of the other".
As she progressed through her career, Ms Halstead said "dozens" of people had been influential for her.
Very rarely had she come across people who would not give her the time of day, and she tried to do exactly the same.
At the nub of what she was doing now - why she was in Southland and why she had stayed there - was proving it was possible to grow great national and global businesses from the South, whether Invercargill, Queenstown or Dunedin. The ingredients were all there for people to thrive, she said.