Latest / Best of Business / Kendall Langston: Pivot & Pace Founding Partner on the country's leading CEOs becoming increasingly frustrated by the lack of long-term thinking

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Kendall Langston: Pivot & Pace Founding Partner on the country's leading CEOs becoming increasingly frustrated by the lack of long-term thinking · Best of Business

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  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from News Talks Be follow
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  Speaker 2: You serve a new insight, this one into what our
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  Speaker 2: CEOs are, what they think basically of our long term
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  Speaker 2: plan as a country. No surprise three year political cycles
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  Speaker 2: and lack of cross party agreement of holding us back.
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  Speaker 2: Kendall Langston is the founding partner of Privalent Pace. They've
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  Speaker 2: done the work on this and Kendall's with us. Very
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  Speaker 2: good morning to you. Now you reckon this is a
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  Speaker 2: New Zealand thing or a Western world thing.
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  Speaker 3: Well, it's probably a bit of both, but definitely it's
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  Speaker 3: a New Zealand thing. We looked across seventy nine New
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  Speaker 3: Zealand CEOs of medium, larger privately held companies in New
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  Speaker 3: Zealand CEOs working into boards and they're definitely telling us,
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  Speaker 3: give us a longer term horizon and which to make
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  Speaker 3: plans and which to invest to gain capital to take initiatives.
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  Speaker 2: The juxtaposition there is that they back and reading this research,
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  Speaker 2: they back their own companies, so they're backing themselves, which
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  Speaker 2: is encouraging, But of course what's the point of going
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  Speaker 2: what I would like is when you know it's not
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  Speaker 2: going to happen. We're not going to get a long
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  Speaker 2: term vision. And I mean we've been arguing this for years,
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  Speaker 2: haven't we.
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  Speaker 3: Well it's not a new one, but certainly it's loud
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  Speaker 3: and clear, and it's not just this survey piece. I mean,
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  Speaker 3: we do this prenominally so we know what the issues are.
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  Speaker 3: CEOs want to know what others are thinking. But it's
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  Speaker 3: really I mean, it can be achieved. There are plenty
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  Speaker 3: of examples out there where countries do have longer term
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  Speaker 3: visions and I'm not saying it needs to be thirty
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  Speaker 3: or fifty years out. It would be great if it
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  Speaker 3: us outside two political cycles. So it gives a bit
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  Speaker 3: of certainty. There is a lot of change. There's a
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  Speaker 3: lot of short term issues. CEOs are saying, we don't
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  Speaker 3: want government involved and it will fix it. Give us
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  Speaker 3: the runway and the resilience, you know, to build some
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  Speaker 3: resilience and to create some confidence in the direction.
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  Speaker 2: That's a legislative thing, isn't it. The countries you refer to,
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  Speaker 2: mainly in Europe, they have bodies or established bodies or
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  Speaker 2: rules or understandings whereby if you commit to something, it's
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  Speaker 2: in place, it doesn't matter what happens to the government
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  Speaker 2: of the day.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think there definitely needs to be some you know,
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  Speaker 3: some ability to change, because we're in a huge amount
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  Speaker 3: of change at the moment. But I think what it's
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  Speaker 3: saying is the direction. What's that mature conversation. What are
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  Speaker 3: we creating in New Zealand? You know what is it
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  Speaker 3: long term? And therefore in the medium term, where do
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  Speaker 3: we need to go? And look, there are plenty of
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  Speaker 3: opportunities out there. This is not a government of the
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  Speaker 3: day issue. This is about just you know, creating that
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  Speaker 3: longer runway around big issues, infrastructure industries, giving industries a
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  Speaker 3: chance to transition in the change in a runway for that.
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  Speaker 2: Having said that, speaking of a transition, you talk about
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  Speaker 2: capital or the access to capital. I mean, I can't
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  Speaker 2: work out what's going on. Is capital a problem? I
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  Speaker 2: mean the world's washed with though. If you say I'm
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  Speaker 2: into AI, they can't give you enough money. So is
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  Speaker 2: it a sort of an industry or sect a specific issue.
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  Speaker 3: Well, largely it's goven by you know, our main banks
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  Speaker 3: and then the access to the stability here in New Zealand,
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  Speaker 3: and you know I'm not an expert in that area,
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  Speaker 3: but most companies, you know, capital is a restraint you know,
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  Speaker 3: to invest, and so it's it's you know, it's that
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  Speaker 3: risk profile. And I think that's the other thing coming
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  Speaker 3: through is you know, the risk profile needs to mature.
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  Speaker 3: You can't not have risk. There's risk and doing nothing.
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  Speaker 3: There's a risk and doing anything. But it's around how
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  Speaker 3: do you get the confidence to take a punt to
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  Speaker 3: back an opportunity? And that's what that's what we're hearing here.
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  Speaker 2: Interesting insight. Well done, Kenda Langston, founding partner at Perbot
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  Speaker 2: and Pace This Morning.
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