Better Business: University of Otago partners with Wao Summit to reimagine the future of business.
Wao General Manager Monique Kelly explores what it means to build a successful business in a world where change and disruption are increasingly part of the operating environment and why Wao is proud to welcome the Ōtākou Whakaihu Waka University of Otago as presenting partner of Better Business Day at this year's Summit.
The past few months have shown how quickly the conditions around us can change. Global events can affect fuel prices and supply chains. Extreme weather can disrupt infrastructure. Technology is transforming how we work. In parallel, climate change, biodiversity loss and pressure on natural resources are changing the wider systems our economy depends upon.
For business, this raises an important question: what does it mean to build a successful business in a world where change and disruption are increasingly part of the operating environment?
That question sits at the heart of Better Business Day, on Wednesday 28 October at the Wao Summit.
This year, we are also incredibly proud to welcome the Ōtākou Whakaihu Waka University of Otago as presenting partner of Better Business Day.
For Wao, this partnership is significant. It brings academic research and thinking into the room alongside people leading businesses, organisations and communities, creating an opportunity to connect knowledge with practical experience.
That exchange of perspectives is at the heart of what Wao has always tried to do: bring people together, challenge assumptions, have difficult conversations and explore what we can do differently.
And there is plenty to talk about.
We start with hope
It can be easy to look at uncertainty and ask, how do we survive what is coming? Dr Denise Quinlan will invite us to turn that question around. What future do we actually want to create? Hope is not passive optimism. Being able to imagine a different future, and doing it together, is an important first step towards building it.
From there, we get practical.
For decades, businesses have been encouraged to optimise for efficiency. But efficiency can remove the buffers that help us cope when conditions change. Building robustness starts with understanding the ecosystem around your business: your staff, suppliers, customers, infrastructure, community and the natural systems you depend upon. We will explore these relationships, identify vulnerabilities and test our assumptions through business continuity planning and different disruption scenarios. The aim is not to predict every shock, but to build the relationships and capabilities that help us respond to whatever comes next.
The afternoon widens the lens again.
Technology offers extraordinary opportunities, but innovation also raises questions about trust, power and who ultimately benefits. Technology journalist Peter Griffin will explore the growing tension between the speed of innovation and society's ability to scrutinise and shape it.
We will also move beyond carbon to consider businesses' relationships with the natural world. Carbon is only one part of the picture. Water, biodiversity, land, materials, waste and other natural systems support every economy and every business. Dr Kate Meyer will demonstrate how businesses can begin measuring these wider impacts and use that knowledge to make better decisions.
Finally, we bring these ideas together and ask what they look like in practice.
Business as a Force for Good
Our Business as a Force for Good panel brings together five people approaching that question from very different perspectives.
Professor Sara Walton, Head of the Department of Management at the Ōtākou Whakaihu Waka University of Otago, brings research and systems thinking around sustainability, climate change and business.
Dr Kate Meyer brings the science and a framework for understanding business within the environmental limits of our planet.
Clinton Chambers, owner of Taste Nature and founder of Taste Nature Social Enterprise, brings the experience of putting values into practice through a business built around a more sustainable, ethical and local economy.
Hayley Anderson, CEO of Central Otago Health Services, brings a people and healthcare perspective. Leading the organisation responsible for Dunstan Hospital, and working closely with the Dunstan Hospital Foundation, brings questions of workforce, wellbeing, resilience and responsibility to a growing community sharply into focus.
And Arna Craig, co-founder of Wao Aotearoa and founder of Conscious, brings more than two decades of brand and strategic experience across commercial and purpose-led organisations — from Artemis and Devold of Norway to her work with Wao, Dunstan Hospital Foundation and Heart Kids NZ.
It is an intentionally broad mix of perspectives: academia, science, social enterprise, healthcare, business and community.
Together, we will explore how purpose, values and long-term thinking can create value for people, communities and the planet alongside commercial success.
The value is in bringing different experiences and perspectives into the same room, asking better questions and learning from what others are already putting into practice.
Building businesses capable of adapting
Better business is not simply about becoming better at predicting the future.
We cannot know exactly what the next disruption will be, what technologies will reshape our industries or how the environmental and social systems around us will change.
But we can build stronger relationships. We can better understand the systems our businesses depend upon. We can question our assumptions. We can think beyond short-term efficiency. And we can make more deliberate decisions about the kind of organisations we want to build and the role they play in the world around them.
Better business is about building businesses capable of adapting to the future, while helping shape the future we actually want.
Join us for Better Business Day
Wednesday 28 October | Rippon Hall, Wānaka.
Presented in partnership with the Ōtākou Whakaihu Waka University of Otago
Spend the day exploring resilience, technology, nature, leadership and the changing role of business with some of Aotearoa's leading thinkers and practitioners.
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Or experience Better Business Day as part of the wider Wao Summit with a Full Festival Pass.
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Better business is not simply about becoming better at predicting the future. It is about building businesses capable of adapting to it, while helping shape the future we actually want.
