Kiwi Business Story: Owner Manager Programme Round-Up

Mat Charles, founder and Managing Director of  Boxman Group, Andrew Young, Design Manager at  Parallaxx and Chris Williams, the owner and CEO of  KingSt Advertising, discuss their Owner Manager Programme journey in this OMP round-up. The trio spoke to us in late 2020 and early 2021.

Mat Charles: I heard about The Icehouse from BNZ and I jumped on  Owner Manager Programme  (OMP) 15 in 2007. I’ve always had an open and liberal mindset; I just wanted to go to learn and had no preconceived ideas around what to expect. The OMP was surprisingly varied in terms of the subjects covered and the way I could address such things in my business. 

A big takeaway was about learning to give up control in the right areas – working on the business rather than in it, and what I heard also echoed my own thinking at the time. It was a real affirmation that I was on the right path around growth and strategy, but also it gave me the tools to turn those thoughts into positive actions.

I thoroughly enjoyed the experience, and all these years down the road still actively talk to people about it. I would recommend OMP to any business owner. I attend Icehouse alumni events when I can, and often chat about resilience and perseverance as being a key attribute towards long-term success.  

My OMP experience helped me shape the business I wanted to have and want it to be. My OMP folders sit on my shelf and I often pull them out to remind myself.  

Honestly, there is some doubt we would have survived the tribulations of 2009 had it not been for the skills I learned on OMP 15 in 2007. Funnily enough, my major OMP project is what Boxman is rolling out in 2021.  

So, what I discovered then is still relevant and critical to what I’m doing now. We are looking to send a couple of the team onto The Icehouse sales workshops in the near future.  

Andrew Young: I did  Owner Manager Programme  48, which kicked off in September 2019 and wrapped up in March 2020. Our celebration dinner was the final weekend before COVID struck in NZ, so OMP will always be etched in my mind!  

I was a bit unsure on what to expect from OMP. I wasn’t hugely confident in my abilities, so maybe there was a bit of imposter syndrome racing around inside. And because I'd never run a company before and was mixing with 24 other business owners, I went into it feeling quite intimidated – running on the assumption that they must know more than me because I thought I knew nothing!  

The content, Liz (Wotherspoon) and Chris (Woods) as facilitators, and Raewyn (Goodwin) as liaison were all amazing, and just being able to spend time with people in a similar situation was a revelation – sharing all their positive and negative experiences.  

One of the best takeaways around OMP is that you can also have valuable and meaningful conversations and I was able to tap into the guest presenters’ networks. Derek Young helped me with some banking advice, and  Greg Byers at Frank  (who is now our accountant) was so competent and un-pushy and not like any accountant I’d ever come across!  

It’s liberating, and I’d recommend OMP to anyone. It turns out that we actually have very good business instincts. Things would come up on OMP and I’d be thinking to myself; ‘we’re doing that’, ‘we can do that’, ‘we can take this and turn it into that’.  

Running a business is a hugely personal thing, so it was also a great confidence-builder from an individual perspective – affirmation that we’re on the right track as an organisation.   

Chris Williams: I did the  Owner Manager Programme in 2004. When I took the course we were the agency for the Auckland University which included the Auckland Business School, so that’s how I found out about The Icehouse.  

I also had three or four contacts in Hamilton who had done the OMP who just loved the experience, so I thought, ‘now’s the time’. I put my heart and soul into it, because you only get out what you put in, and I thought it was brilliant.

I still refer back to my end-of-programme business plan and it’s always very helpful – even after all this time! There are always things you can refresh and implement so it never goes out of date.   

The main thing I got out of OMP was how essential it is to get out of the business and have a good look at things externally. There was also an emphasis on governance, and I appointed a couple of directors as a result of what I learned on OMP. I also picked up a few ideas on handling growth and that helped when we opened our Tauranga office.

In terms of the business development side of things we also put in place some processes which had been fairly random up to that point. This came down to putting a team in place to make sure all bases are covered. I know my strengths well but I know my weaknesses even better!  

Something that’s rarely discussed is having personal ambitions when you’re a business owner, and the OMP also addressed that. So I’ve pursued my other passions and released two music albums and written and produced two musicals, ‘State Highway 48’ and ‘The Quest’. State Highway 48 has international potential – this has been confirmed to me after a North Island tour and a short season at Bruce Mason Theatre in Auckland.

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