10 | REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT Tourism Holdings Ltd T T Richard Loader Awards recognition of a job well done. Tourism Holdings was named Company of the Year Finalist in the 2023 Deloitte Top 200. “It’s about teams feeling validation and that sense of success. I think that is the greatest reward for being recognised in these awards, either as a finalist, or as category winner.“ T T to page 12 Listed on both the NZX and ASX, Tourism Holdings Limited (THL) was named Company of the Year Finalist in the 2023 Deloitte Top 200, with its CEO Grant Webster winning the Chief Executive of the Year category. The Deloitte Top 200 Awards are held annually to recognise and celebrate outstanding individual and management team performances among New Zealand’s largest companies and trading organisations. Now in its 35th year, the Deloitte Top 200 Awards are well established as the pre-eminent platform for showcasing the best of New Zealand business. The Company of the Year award recognises the best organisational performance from the previous year. Judging criteria includes the latest financial measures, as well as non-financial and other qualitative measures of organisational performance, such as corporate reputation, approach to environmental management and others. The Chief Executive of the Year award recognises the best executive performance from the previous year. Judging criteria includes the performance of the winner’s organisation and the extent to which they have contributed to that performance and the current strategy. Also important is the regard in which the winner is held by peers. Acknowledging THLl’s success at the awards, Grant says what he particularly likes about the Deloitte Top 200 awards is that the candidate selection is through a process of external research, rather than corporate entry. He says that a number of years ago thl won a Deloiite’s Growth Strategy award, and he realised just how much the external recognition meant to the THL teams working in all different roles. “The real value that awards like Deloittes Top 200 provides is the external validation and confirmation of what we’re doing as an organisation, and how that helps people who are working really hard to say, actually we are doing a good job — we’re standing above our peer group in these different ways. It’s about teams feeling validation and that sense of success. I think that is the greatest reward for being recognised in these awards, either as a Finalist, or as category winner. We can say internally, hey you are doing a great job, but for someone external and independent to say it, that make a big difference.” Grant is somewhat coy on his own success at the awards, preferring the attention and praise be directed to the global thl teams, but says achieving CEO of the Year was huge recognition for him personally. “I would never at any stage during my youth or professional career have thought that I would be seen in a group the calibre of this year’s Finalists, or the previous winners. It was extremely humbling for me, and I think I have a little bit of the imposter syndrome. By the same token I know I work hard and try to do the right thing by people. So, if that is what has come through during the judging, then that is great. Not many leaders get the opportunity to have the support of the Board and different Chairs, to be in a role like this in a publicly listed place for fifteen years, and have the teams develop and continue to grow; to have that mandate to grow and do things differently. We haven’t got everything right, obviously, but it has been a genuine privilege. It has given the business and me an opportunity to continue to grow and develop. Rather than a new CEO every three to five years and jig to the left or the right, we have been able to build a team that is really long standing that does a good job.” THL was founded in the early 1980s as a South Island company called The Helicopter Line. After listing on the NZX in 1986 it progressively evolved into a broad based tourism company within New Zealand, then became a specialist in the motorhome side and expanding into Australia. Today, THL is the global leader in commercial motorhome rentals operating in New Zealand, Australia, United Kingdom, United States and Canada, with franchises in South Africa and Japan, buying, renting and selling RVs globally, all of which has been under Grant’s leadership. Not many businesses or leaders can lay claim to such success, particularly when Covid was an intervening factor. “When you’re a business that is ninety percent reliant upon international tourism and the borders close it’s pretty serious, and we were in the dark depths with any tourism company. “The thing that we did quite quickly was to challenge ourselves in what we were really good at and what we could do differently with our assets. We looked at our skill base and how we could apply that in this new world. The life blood of your business. 0800 70 10 10 sales@aktron.co.nz
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