Editor’s Letter – Nov/Dec 2021

When I get wheeled into sales meetings – kind of like an uncharismatic Denny Crane – I have a habit of derailing the conversation with unfiltered dad jokes. But in my defence, I think I redeem myself when talking both about our content mix and our audience – both connected by a philosophical strand of inspirational optimism about the power of enterprise, ideas, entrepreneurs, technology and innovation to make the world a better place. This optimism has a bit of external pressure on it at the moment – a global pandemic will do that – but the media does very well out of negativity and nothing drives clicks like a good dose of anxiety and ideological polarisation.

If we pull back from that a little bit though and actually celebrate the people making a positive impact in the world – the people at the top of their game in whatever field that might be – we might just help drive a more realistic picture of all the great that is happening in the world and encourage more people to contribute to making it even greater.

In this respect, it is such a pleasure in this issue to celebrate the co-founder of Allbirds, Tim Brown as our 2021 M2 Man of The Year. Not only has he represented New Zealand at the highest levels of football, but he has gone on to disrupt and clean up the footwear industry while creating a multibillion-dollar global brand. He shares some of his incredible journey with us in this issue. I get the sense that there is still a lot more to come from Tim. And that is exciting, inspirational and worth celebrating and supporting.

Cover image by Peter Prato.