What's in store for New Zealand businesses in 2027?

David Hope, Head of Industry, Manufacturing & Wholesale Trade will host an expert panel to discuss how the wholesale trade industry can adapt to compete and win in an increasingly digital world.

Westpac Economist Paul Clark will talk about the key findings in his latest Industry research paper “Wholesaling in New Zealand – pushing the digital limits” and he will share the 4 critical success factors of wholesaling in New Zealand. Joining the discussion to give us their industry perspective will also be, Scott Hawkins of Hawkins Watts, one of New Zealand most significant food ingredient wholesalers, and Richard Higham from Hi-Q, a family owned electronic and plastic component wholesaler.

We look forward to you joining us in what promises to be an insightful conversation.

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Introducing our speakers. 

Being Cyber Smart.

Wholesale Trade: Pushing the digital limits.

Dan Symons has over 25 years in financial services and 12 years with Westpac. He is passionate about helping businesses prepare for and navigate future payment and technology pathways that will help them be efficient, reduce risk and deliver value to support their success.

Paul Clark joined Westpac’s Economics team as an industry economist in July 2017 focusing on the structural analysis of industry and regional economic performance. Prior to joining Westpac, he was a principal advisor at the New Zealand Transport Agency focusing on environmental analysis and non-financial performance measurement and monitoring. Before emigrating to New Zealand in 2006, Paul had worked extensively in South Africa as an industry economist and as a country risk analyst specialising in developing countries in sub-Saharan Africa.

Ray Chow currently leads the Westpac Cyber Security Advisory team and has been in the Security Industry for over 15 years. He has experience in incident response, security operations and stakeholder managements. In recent years, his focus has shifted towards the challenges in securing human beings. Ray is an active New Zealand Internet Task Force member since inception, Board Member, and currently mentors the Internet Task Force.

Scott Hawkins is the Managing Director of Hawkins Watts, a food technology business, and an importer and distributor of functional food ingredients that are supplied to food manufacturers throughout New Zealand.  Hawkins Watts imports ingredients from all over the world and has been operating since 1992.  The supply chain issues of the past few years have by far been the most challenging since the business began and are far from being over.

Sam Leggett is a Senior Analyst with the Threat and Incident Response team at CERT NZ. Sam has done studies focusing on Computer Science and Cyber Security with additional training in Incident Management and Response. With 5 years experience within fraud prevention, Sam is passionate about helping as many people as possible stay safe online here in NZ and around the world.

Richard Higham is the Managing Director of Hi-Q Electronics Ltd, a Company started by his father in 1981. Hi-Q Electronics Ltd, trading as Hi-Q Components, imports and distributes plastic and electronic components to New Zealand manufacturers and many other areas including automotive, marine, hydraulic, engineering, aviation. Hi-Q has over the last 40 years grown to be a major component supplier to the New Zealand manufacturer.