From a wardrobe at our family home to a national business. And what came next.

I left school at 16 and joined the business. I started on reception, swept the yard and learned how the different parts of the operation worked. I was always looking for the next job, the next thing to learn. I was a sponge.

As Mum and Dad moved out of the day-to-day running and into governance, I took on more responsibility. I became General Manager of Switched On Property Maintenance, which later became Switched On Building Solutions. In October 2018, I became Group Chief Executive. Around the same time, Mum and Dad began thinking about selling some of their shares, and what the next chapter of ownership might look like.

As Chief Executive, I started scaling the business and preparing it for their eventual exit. We were growing it while also working out what its future beyond the family could look like. During my nearly seven years as Chief Executive, annual turnover grew from around $30 million to approximately $300 million.

We grew through new work, acquisitions and new markets. We developed Switched On Building Solutions, acquired Hush Interiors and expanded our maintenance partnership with our biggest customer. We became one of New Zealand's five national housing maintenance partners and one of its largest privately owned providers, maintaining nearly 20,000 homes across two regions. There were more people, more customers, more systems and more decisions. And more consequences when something didn't work.

In the later years, Camille and I worked together on a transformation across the whole business. We were changing how work moved through the organisation—across people, processes, systems and experience—while it continued operating at scale. We learned how much one change could affect everything around it.

A new process could create more work for another team. Technology could solve one problem and introduce three others. A decision made at the top could create consequences for people several layers away. What looked like a people problem, a communication issue or a lack of capability was often a problem with how the business was designed.

We also saw how a successful, growing business could become increasingly dependent on a small number of people holding everything together. Those lessons became a big part of what we took into Duality.

While we were growing the business, we were also working through its future ownership. Mum and Dad had spent decades building Switched On. Preparing to step back meant deciding what it was worth and who they wanted to be in business with.

It took around a year to prepare the business to take to market, then another year of conversations before we found Ngāti Toa. When Camille first heard they were considering selling half the business, she said that choosing who would own the other 50% would become the most important decision they made.

We decided to approach iwi rather than run a conventional open-market sale. Switched On had deep roots in social housing. We wanted a partner whose values, purpose and long-term outlook aligned with what Mum and Dad had spent decades building. We were looking for the right people to be in business with.

In 2021, Te Rūnanga o Toa Rangatira became a 50% shareholder in Switched On Group. In 2022, the business was gifted the name Kā te Rama—the light burns. In late 2024, Ngāti Toa increased its shareholding to become the majority owner. Over those years, the business moved from founder ownership and management to second-generation leadership, an iwi partnership and eventually majority iwi ownership.

There's a lot tied up in a family business. For us, it represented decades of Mum and Dad's work, their sacrifices, relationships and the opportunities they'd created for others. By the time I became Chief Executive, there was already a history to carry. Then came our own ambitions, decisions and responsibilities.

We learned that selling shares, stepping away from leadership and making sure a business can continue successfully are three different things. A business can change ownership and still depend on the same people. A new leader can inherit responsibility without having the authority or capacity to carry it. A transaction can be commercially successful while leaving work to do for the next stage. Succession involves the sale, but it also involves people, relationships, identity and decisions about what needs to stay as other things change.

In May 2025, after 25 years in the business and nearly seven as Chief Executive, I stepped away. We'd been through enormous growth and change. Our fourth child, Louis, had arrived, and we were recognising what the demands of leadership had cost our family.

For me, it meant leaving the business I'd grown up in. For Camille, it meant taking what she'd learned about how organisations work and applying it beyond one business. We had to decide what we wanted to carry forward.

We'd experienced growing a business, redesigning it while it was operating, bringing new partners into ownership and eventually handing it on. We'd seen what was possible when capable people, clear decisions, good systems and aligned ownership worked together. We'd also seen the consequences when they didn't.

People, processes, systems, authority, responsibility, customers and capital all affect each other. Change one, and something else moves. When you don't understand those connections, good decisions can still create problems elsewhere. And when the way a business works no longer fits what it's being asked to do, people end up carrying the difference.

We also came to see ownership as something people exercise throughout a business. It means recognising what belongs to you, taking responsibility for it and developing the judgement and ability to carry it. That matters for owners, leaders and the people affected by their decisions. These experiences shaped how we think about growth, ownership and succession.