Meet the board: Chris Day
What was your first governance role?
The New Zealand Wool Board in 1998, my employer at the time. They were ‘internal’ in the sense they were part of managing our group structure and not part of the externally facing governance. It ‘got me started’. My first external role was with AgriQuality (now AsureQuality) in 1999 – from there followed some external personal directorships, more career-related ones, then external directorships.
What is the best advice you received as a young director?
While a board benefits from diversity in all its forms, leave one’s technical perspective at the door, offer diverse thoughtful perspectives and be prepared to lean into a shared outcome. In the real world of achieving outcomes, decisions need to be taken in service of creating sustainable value and achieving an organisation’s goals. Governance is a ‘team game’ where everyone has their formal roles, yet are also part of a group (directors and management) where no one has a monopoly on good ideas.
What has given you the greatest satisfaction in your boardroom career?
The incredible sense of accomplishment when ambitious goals are realised where the status quo has been challenged, and new leadership and business outcomes achieved that were not previously thought possible. These types of results provide growth and leadership opportunities for the people that caused the outcomes.
What would be the title of your biography, and why?
“From Ballance to Business” – my journey as a leader and the surprises along the way.
Who would you like to invite to dinner, and why?
Let’s go for a party of eight, including me: comic genius Rowan Atkinson; Singularity University co-founder Peter Diamandis; England footballing role model Leah Williamson; Māori rights champion Whina Cooper; Winston Churchill; Michelle Obama; and Rena Day, my wonderful wife and partner in life.
What keeps you awake at night?
I sleep well, but it’s the perennial issues of insufficient sustainable wealth creation. That provides options and choices both personally and nationally. I worry that ‘our politicians and advocacy groups’ (i.e. that’s all us Kiwis) spend too much time ‘shouting from entrenched positions’ rather than leaning into solutions to hard problems. I worry about insufficient solutions to worsening inequality, a chaotic housing market, poor policy (e.g. holiday pay shemozzle), a tax system that (nearly) taxes the marginal income of someone on the minimum wage at 30%, not to mention chronic infrastructure and other shortfalls. I worry that NZ Inc needs to find solutions to these challenges while respecting diversity, yet committing to outcomes in ways that do not always mean ‘more government’.
Also see Chris Day's governance roles.