Maia was brought up in Southland – eldest of four siblings who whakapapa to Tauranga Moana through Ngai Te Rangi. Completing a Bachelor of Commerce majoring in accountancy and management at Otago University, he put his tertiary education to use at Deloitte and KPMG in Otago and Southland before heading to the capital for a two-year stint with BNZ Finance.
The familiar drive for an OE experience followed with the next 15 years spent in London with UBS, initially as an Accountant within the fixed income and FX areas before moving onto the trading floor in derivatives. He confirmed that the chaos on the trading floor that we saw in movies like Wall Street was fairly accurate in the 1990s – no cell phones during those days so you learnt the art of filtering the noise. A skill that came in handy during the years of young kids and working at home which came later!
During an extended visit back to New Zealand to see whānau and introduce them to Lee, a Scottish lass, a plan was hatched that would see their future back home in Aotearoa.
Back in London and following a decade on the floor, an opportunity arose that allowed him to stay in the investment business but on the edges as Head of an Asia Pacific unit for a global rates derivatives news service with a head office based in UK. In 2005, now a father, he made his way back to NZ to Tauranga, where he worked remotely for the next 15 plus years – a concept that was fairly new to the business world back then but now a matter of everyday business. A “side hustle” presented itself a couple of years later in 2007 to become a partner in an organisation that dealt in high quality carbon credits, consulting to organisations that wanted to reduce their footprint and were looking for solutions. Again, ahead of his time – carbon credits were only just becoming understood by the mainstream.
Maia and Lee have four teenage children who are active in sport, music and academics. Whilst Maia could not be prouder of each for their hard work and achievements, he says it is their societal awareness he is most proud of. Raising caring, empathetic and mindful rangatahi is something that Maia, who keeps a fairly low profile around the office, says fills his bucket.
Both the smarts and the heart that Maia brings to the Quayside office is a real coup for us and we benefit from his global thinking delivered in a community way, every day. An active football coach at Tauranga City, he’s working on developing a Quayside 1st XI which could take a while, but this humble gem has the goods to take us to the Regionals!
