Rob Fyfe Email Address

Chairman

Icebreaker merino clothing for the outdoors, technical sports and lifestyle includes underwear, mid layer garments, outerwear, socks and accessories for men, women and children. Icebreaker is based in Auckland, New Zealand, and is sold in more than 4000 stores in 44 countries.

I’ve never thought in terms of a career path or career goals. My career has been shaped by curiousness, a desire to constantly learn and grow, an incessant dissatisfaction with the status quo and a sense of adventure and appetite for risk. As a result, I’ve never planned my next move until something comes along that makes me think, ‘wow, that looks really exciting, I need to unpick that, find out what it’s about and try to make it better.’ Despite starting as an engineer, I’m not naturally a methodical person or process thinker. I hate repetition and predictability. I love trying to understand how and why things work and I’m an avid believer that if you get too locked into a pre-determined course of action your field of view narrows and you miss out on how to reimagine and innovate. These traits have led me on an amazing adventure over 35 years, spanning a myriad of different roles, industries and countries. I don’t measure my achievements by the size of the companies I’ve run or the roles I’ve had. Life is ultimately measured by the nature and quality of the relationships you build along the way and our ability to make a difference in people’s lives as well as our environment and community. Much has been written about my success while leading Air New Zealand, but I don’t think I have any particular gift in running airlines. What we excelled at, was embracing our sense of identity as NZ’ers and having the courage to infuse that uniquely Kiwi personality into everything we did. In the process we reimagined a business centred around people rather than planes. I learnt a lot about the Kiwi psyche and how we relate to people and brands. It’s a space I’ve become deeply passionate about and it’s led me to continue to explore this opportunity with other NZ businesses. I’ve worked with so many inspiring entrepreneurs, scientists, innovators and deeply passionate colleagues around the globe powering these great business and brands to global success.