Category: Latest News

It’s been a year of strong success amid enormous challenges for the team at innovative snack sized apple company, Rockit Global Limited, which has taken out the Marketing Team of the Year at the TVNZ NZ Marketing Awards, and the Marketing Campaign of the Year Award at the Asia Fruit Awards in Hong Kong. The TVNZ NZ Marketing Awards celebrate...

The region’s rebuild of bridges and roads is set to cost more than $1 Billion and a provide a pipeline of civil infrastructure work that could stretch out for the next decade. But what businesses will benefit? Large national and multi-national businesses have already formed alliances with Waka Kotahi while a local-centric procurement pledge (progressive procurement) by local council’s has...

Hawke’s Bay based technology company, Fingermark, has been named the 2023 AmCham - DHL Express Success & Innovation Awards for Technology Exporter of the Year to the Unites States. The award recognises Fingermark's exceptional achievements in the global technology export industry and its remarkable contributions to the tech sector within New Zealand. Fingermark stood out among an impressive field of...

It’s taken a bit longer than expected to get to 50 issues due to COVID19 and most recently the cyclone that struck our region in February. I regard 50 issues as a significant milestone. It has taken 13 years to achieve and I recall the launch of the idea and the doubt by some that a positive regional business publication...

As Hawke’s Bay’s new economic development agency begins to take shape, the organisations chair Alasdair McLeod, has a very clear view of where it will make its most impact. The new regional development agency was announced in December 2021 with a $1.7 million annual funding commitment for three years, delivering on the existing Matariki Regional Economic Development Strategy (REDS). Alasdair...

Russell Roads chief executive Gavin O’Connor is proud of how businesses that usually compete against each other “left their company badges at the door” and worked together to clear debris and repair roads across Hawke’s Bay. “Everyone really pulled together to get our communities reconnected.  For the most part the company badges have been left at the door and people...

Unison Networks crews worked around the clock to rebuild their electricity network after Cyclone Gabrielle cut power to over 65,000 customers across the region. It has been the most arduous challenge Unison has ever endured, with 25 crews clocking up over 60,000 hours repairing over 80 kilometres of lines, 230 power poles as well as reinstating sub-stations. As well as...

Excuse the pun, but for Drainways a lot of their existing work was lost down the drain after the cyclone hit. “The impact on our business was massive in so many ways. All of our contract works stopped for more than a month,” says managing director Mark Currie. “We returned back to work six days after the cyclone and only...

Sophie McHardy and Richard Paul didn’t hesitate in finding ways that they and the company they work for, Mediaworks, could pitch in and help. Richard, now based at the Mediaworks Auckland office, as their head of property, loaded up a ute of supplies and headed south to his beloved region as soon as he could, while locally Sophie and the...

The Rescuers Jimmy Guerin and his team at Helicopters Hawke’s Bay pulled hundreds of people from roofs, risking their own lives in doing so. Weeks on from the cyclone, Jimmy says those rescues remain a blur, as they spent hours and hours in the most impacted areas of Hastings and Napier searching for people and animals to rescue. “It was...