Mainfreight Culture and US Market Challenges

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The main reason for this call is that I'm interested in understanding the difference between New Zealand and the rest of the world from Mainfreight's perspective. Given your experience, having spent more than 10 years on each side, I thought it would be great to touch base at this point. So, if you're ready, we can start. I know you came from Owens when Mainfreight acquired them. Maybe we can start with you telling me how Mainfreight is different from other transport and logistics providers in New Zealand.

Owens had a significant amount of hierarchy that Mainfreight didn't have. A story that's often repeated is that they closed the Owens head office, retained three or four people, and the business continued operating the next day.

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The main reason for this call is that I'm interested in understanding the difference between New Zealand and the rest of the world from Mainfreight's perspective. Given your experience, having spent more than 10 years on each side, I thought it would be great to touch base at this point. So, if you're ready, we can start. I know you came from Owens when Mainfreight acquired them. Maybe we can start with you telling me how Mainfreight is different from other transport and logistics providers in New Zealand.

The level of trust they immediately placed in me to run the business as if it were my own was incredible. They didn't know anything about it, so they let me manage it to the best of my abilities and allowed me to grow it. Now, they're a major player in that market. This experience taught me early on that they are very trusting of people doing their jobs.

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You mentioned that the main difference between Mainfreight and Owens is the level of hierarchy. Could you explain what you mean by that?

At Owens, any decision that needed approval or any investment took time, often requiring the same story to be sold three or four times to different people before action could be taken. With Mainfreight, particularly in my case, I had direct access to Don. If we needed to do something, it was incredibly straightforward to get it done.

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