Celebrating Business Excellence
Showcasing our members success as they are recognised on the national and international stage.
Tonic Interior System
Tonic Interior Systems Ltd was recognised nationally at the AWCI NZ Awards of Excellence, winning the $100–$500K Commercial Project Award for the SBS Bank head office fit-out, with the Distinction Hotel and Invercargill Central projects named finalists in the over $1 million category. Founder Tony de Vries was also honoured for 30 years of service to the interior construction industry.
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Chris Blenkiron
Chris Blenkiron, General Manager of NZAS, has won the Entelar Group Large Business Leadership Award. Since 2022, Chris has led NZAS with bold, values-driven leadership, guiding the organisation through major change and securing a sustainable future for Tiwai and Southland.
Stephen O'Connor
Stephen O’Connor, CFP, has been honoured with the 2025 FPSB Noel Maye Award for Outstanding Contribution to the Profession, recognising his significant impact on the global financial planning community.
Alliance Farmers Produce
Alliance Group claimed gold at the 2025 World Steak Challenge for their Ribeye (Cube Roll) and also secured silver medals for their Ribeye and Fillet cuts.
Awarua Synergy
Awarua Synergy has won the Community Impact Award at the PROtrade United Industry Awards in Brisbane, recognising its outstanding contribution to community wellbeing.
Invercargill Airport
The Southern Way campaign, One Trip to See it All, has taken home the Commercial Initiative of the Year Award at the 2025 NZ Airports Hui Gala. Entered by the Southern Airport Alliance — Invercargill, Dunedin, and Queenstown Airports.
Good Guise
Good Guise earned a Silver Award at the 2025 Outstanding Food Producer Awards for its handcrafted Queso Fresco.
Fat Bastard Pies
Fat Bastard Pies earned national recognition at the 2025 NZ Pie Awards, taking home Bronze for Mince & Gravy, 5th place for Chicken & Vegetables, and a Highly Commended in the Vegetarian category.
Creation Signs
Creation Signs won gold at the New Zealand Sign and Display Association Awards for its semi-submersible whale wrap project. The company was also a finalist for its Hawthorndale Care Village and Tuatara Island projects.
Southland Tribune
The Southland Tribune’s Logan Savory has won the National Basketball League’s Best Media Coverage Award for the 2025 season.
Property Scouts
Propertyscouts Invercargill celebrated multiple national honours, including the Healthy Home Excellence Award, Team of the Year, Letting Agent of the Year (Liz Hope), and Masterclass Award (Angela Jenkins).
The Headache Clinic
The Southland-designed Neck Alignment Pillow (NAP) has gained national attention for its role in improving sleep and recovery for athletes and everyday New Zealanders.
Hopefield Hemp
Hopefield Hemp won gold at the 2025 Outstanding Food Producer Awards, winning top honours for its premium cold-pressed Hempseed Oil.
Brenda Nom
Brenda Nom, of Brenda Nom Mortgage & Insurance, received the Financial Capability Award at the Financial Advice New Zealand (FANZ) Conference 2025.
H G Morsink Ltd
H G Morsink Ltd won two Gold Awards and the Commercial Master Painter of the Year title at the 2024 Master Painter awards.
Te Rourou One NZ Foundation
The Invercargill Initiative winner of the 2024 TUANZ Community Initiative of the Year. In recognition for their work supporting rangatahi to thrive across Murihiku.
RealNZ
RealNZ won the Award for Large Allied Operator of the Year 2024 at the Tourism Export Council New Zealand Inc Conference.
The Bluff Distillery
Bluff Distillery won Australia’s Best Dry Gin and Best in Show at the 2024 Australian Gin Awards — and followed up with Gold at the 2025 San Francisco World Spirits Competition for its London Dry Gin. World-class craft, proudly made in Southland.
PowerNet
Finalist at the 2024 New Zealand Excellence Awards – Low Carbon Future Award, and the Innovation in Energy Award (in partnership with Digital Stock).
E Hayes & Sons Ltd
Amalgamated Builders Ltd (ABL)
Amalgamated Builders Ltd (ABL) won a Gold Award, the National Category Winner for Retail, and a Special Judges’ Award at the 2024 New Zealand Commercial Project Awards for its work on the Invercargill Central development. The Southland Tribune: 30 May 2024
Invercargill wins National Awards
Invercargill won two Awards of Excellence at the 2024 NZ Institute of Landscape Architecture Awards for the City Streets Upgrade and the Sandy Point Domain Masterplan. The Southland Tribune: 21 May 2024
The Fat Duck
The Fat Duck has earned national acclaim, winning Best in the Lower South Island and the Supreme Award at the 2025 Top NZ 50 Gastropubs. In 2024 chef’s Josh & Cameron Davies took home two awards – Best in the Lower South Island, and Estrella Damm Best Paired Meal. In 2023 chef owner Cameron Davies won the Global Chef Pacific Rim Semi-final, earning the opportunity to represent New Zealand at the 2024 Global Chef Final in Singapore.
Aquila Sustainable Farming
Aquila Sustainable Farming was recognised in 2023 by Environment Southland and the German New Zealand Chamber of Commerce, receiving the Responsibility for the Future Award for its carbon reductions and sustainable farming practices across six Southland organic dairy farms.
Great South
Great South won the Best Practice for Integrated Strategy Award at the 2023 Economic Development New Zealand Awards for leading the Beyond 2025 Southland Regional Long Term Plan, recognised for its innovative approach and long-term regional benefits.
Kiwiskips
In 2024, Daniel Butterfield was named Waste and Resource Recovery Young Professional of the Year at the WasteMINZ Awards for Excellence. In 2023, Kiwi Skips won Xero’s national Innovating for Sustainability Award.
Robbies by Mrs Pickles
Multiple national food awards, including NZ Food Awards Finalist (2023) and Outstanding Food Producer Gold for Peach + Ginger Chutney (2023) and Noir Garlik (2022, also Free From Special Champion). Additional Silver and Bronze medals were earned for Pickled Onion, Honey Balsamic Pickled Onion and Noir Garlik products.
SBS Bank
2023: SBS Bank was named the Cooperative / Mutual of the Year at the Cooperative Business New Zealand Awards, celebrating excellence among customer-owned businesses. Photo credit: Stuff NZ
SBS Wealth
SBS Wealth’s Lifestages KiwiSaver Scheme was recognised for top performance, with its High Growth Fund ranking 1st in Morningstar’s Aggressive category over 1 year and 2nd over 3 years to 31 December 2023.
Rent South
Rent South was honoured with the 2023 PMC Small Agency of the Year Award, recognising its outstanding contribution to property management through exceptional quality, service, and performance.
Malloch McClean
Malloch McClean has consistently been recognised for excellence, winning Xero’s Large Accounting Partner of the Year in 2019, 2021, and 2022, and earning multiple finalist placings for Advisory Partner of the Year. The firm also ranked among CAANZ/ Sunday Star-Times Top 30 Accounting Firm in 2019.
Blue River Dairy LP
Blue River Dairy has achieved outstanding national recognition, earning Deloitte Fast 50 Awards across multiple years — including Master of Growth (2021), and repeated titles for Fastest Growing Exporter, Manufacturer, and Agribusiness, ranking 4th and 5th fastest growing company in 2018 (938%) and 2019 (968%).
(Harold) William Richardson
1940 – 2005. Inducted in 2005.
Southlander Bill Richardson’s sudden death in 2005 left a gaping hole in the region’s business community. He was governing director of the family-owned holding company, H W Richardson Group, a diverse empire employing more than 1000 staff and turning over about $400 million a year.
The group’s 26 companies operated from more than 70 locations throughout New Zealand.
The Richardson empire started in 1878 in the small Southland township of Wyndham with roots in the building industry. Its activities expanded to include ready-mix concrete, transport, fuel distribution, roading, sand, gravel and lime. Allied Concrete, Southern Transport, South Roads and Allied Petroleum featured among its better-known brands.
Leslie Hutchins
1924 – 2003. Inducted in 2011.
Les Hutchins’ South Island tourism operations began modestly back in 1954 with an 18km walking track, two mall old boats, two huts and a dilapidated lodge at Doubtful Sound. He went on to purchase Fiordland Travel, the Te Anau Glow-worm Caves and the Milford Track lake transport operations. A few years later he bought the vintage steamship TSS Earnslaw in Queenstown and in 1970 began running cruises on the world renowned Milford Sound after gaining the governments tourism monopoly there.
Hutchins had a life-long dedication to conservation. In 1973 Les Hutchins was named one of the founding Guardians of the Lakes and held that position for 26 years and spent 12 years on the New Zealand Conservation Authority. He was a founding patron of the New Zealand National Parks and Conservation Foundation and was made a Distinguished Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to conservation and tourism.
Annie Millar
Inducted in 2015.
Born in Scotland in 1855, Annie Cleland Millar founded the business which ultimately became Quality Bakers Southland. Annie married John Millar and managed the Prince of Wales private hotel, which gained a reputation as ‘the main eating house in Invercargill’. Annie and her sons then spent more than 30 years building their own bakery and dining business. Annie founded a thriving local business and dynasty, with her family continuing their involvement until 1993.
Samuel Nichol
1840 – 1924. Inducted in 2019.
Samuel Nichol was a prominent businessman in the Southland area, whose business skills were critical to the establishment of Bluff and Invercargill during the 1800s. Through his development of the railway between Invercargill and Bluff, as well as his ventures in whaling, shipping and coal hauling through the Nichol Brothers company. Samuel was unstinting in him promotion of, and fundraising for, the development of the Bluff harbor and the Southland region’s infrastructure, and in doing so, Bluff became a thriving commercial centre.
Sir Robert Anderson
1866 – 1942. Inducted in 2020.
Sir Robert Anderson was a notable businessman and philanthropist who founded the mercantile firm J.G. Ward with Sir Joseph Ward in 1898. J.G Ward continues to operate today as PGG Wrightson. For many years he served as a board member of the New Zealand Shipping Company, being appointed chairman in 1941. Sir Robert’s financial and industrial interests were manifold.
He held numerous directorships including the boards of the Bank of New Zealand and the New Zealand Insurance Company and was chairman of Nestlé and Anglo-Swiss Condensed Milk Company, New Zealand Milk Products and Stewart Island Oyster Canneries. Sir Robert and his family are remembered today through Invercargill’s Anderson Park.
Photo Credit – Invercargill Public Art Gallery.
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John Jones
1809 – 1869. Inducted in 1999.
Sydneysider Johnny Jones saved sufficient money from working on sealing and whaling ships and as a waterman ferrying people across Sydney Harbour to acquire interests in three whaling ships by 1830.
Starting with a whaling station at Preservation Inlet, Southland, he gained control of the South Island whaling industry.
In 1838 Jones bought a whaling station at Waikouaiti Bay, Otago, and established settlements at Matanaka on the northern end of the bay. As whaling declined, he moved to farming, introducing sheep, cattle and horses, and providing food to Dunedin settlers after the town was founded in 1848.
Jones also formed the Harbour Steam Navigation Company, which became the Union Steam Ship Company.
Elspeth Kennedy
1931 – 2017. Inducted in 2018.
Pioneering businesswoman Elspeth Kennedy was born in Invercargill and began her career at the Invercargill City Council and teaching music. Kennedy was the first woman to become a member of the New Zealand stock exchange and also the first woman to run her own broking business.
After a successful career as a stockbroker and director of various companies, Elspeth turned her energy to improving the care of the terminally ill. As chairwoman of the Nelson Tasman Hospice Trust from 1998 to 2014, she was instrumental in building the first hospice facility in Nelson which has since grown to a 10-bed palliative care inpatient unit.
Elspeth was appointed a member of the Order of the British Empire in 1990, and a Companion of the Queen’s Service Order in the New Year honours for her valuable voluntary service to the community.
Bendix Hallenstein
1835 – 1905. Inducted in 2010.
German-born Bendix Hallenstein was the son of a mill owner who made shoddy – woollen yarn from rags with some new wool added. It was a inauspicious start to what would become a stellar business career.
Moving to New Zealand in 1863, he opened a store in Invercargill but moved the business to Queenstown in 1864. With sawmiller James Robertson, Hallenstein opened Otago’s first inland flour mill in 1867 at Kawarau Falls.
Hallenstein succeeded Robertson as mayor of Queenstown in 1869 but in 1873 he moved to Dunedin where he established the New Zealand Clothing Factory, the basis of a business that became the highly successful nationwide chain known as Hallenstein Bros.
Sir Clifford George Skeggs
– OSTJ QSM. 1931 – Inducted in 2000.
Southland-born Cliff Skeggs started a fishing business in 1953, creating the largest private inshore fleet in New Zealand.
He was a pioneer private investor in deepwater fishing and extended his interests into the transport industry, serving as chairman of Pacifica Shipping, which operated its own airline, Pacifica Air.
But to many Skeggs was better known for his involvement in local politics. He was a member of the Otago Harbour Board from 1965-77 (chairman from 1973-77), a Dunedin city councillor from 1971-77 and mayor from 1977-89.
He assisted the community in a number of ways, not least his backing of the Skeggs Foundation to promote sporting endeavour.