Walking on water
By Zoë George
Sitting outside on a mild autumn day drinking lattes, with golden leaves swirling around and the sun on our backs — a perfectly relaxed setting to find out who the man behind all that entrepreneurial talent really is.
Some say you’ve made it if you have the three Bs — the BMW, the bach and the boat.
“I don’t have the Beemer, the bach or the boat, I don’t have any of them,” says businessman Tony Falkenstein. “I guess I haven’t made it!”
That statement couldn’t be further from the truth when it comes to Tony, who is best known these days for his involvement in Just Water and Bartercard. You would never pick him to be a multi-millionaire who has appeared on the NBR’s Rich List a number of times.
A humble and typically laid back Kiwi guy, Tony is an Aucklander through and through who grew up in Onehunga and is a staunch Blues supporter. He started off in business at a young age and has always had a passion for it.
“I was so naive when I was 21. I was a real kid and that’s what I think is a benefit because I’ve never really grown up,” Tony chuckles.
“At that time I had no idea about how the world worked and how to look at accounting books. I didn’t even know the difference between debit and credit.”
He studied commerce at Auckland University and became an accountant which he believes he was “terrible at” and ended up going into marketing. He had his first job in the business realm at 24 and by 29 was a CEO at Polaroid.
Tony always had a knack of picking the future of businesses and has done very well out of it.
“Something just clicked at some stage that I can do things that are better than other people,” he says. “You need to find your one skill and once you have found it that is the key to success.”
For Tony however, his skill is being able to think outside the square. “My skill is that I can think like a kid and can do anything. Give a three year old a pen and they can turn it into a rocket or whatever they want. I think I can do something with anything.”
It was this approach that led him to start his own business in 1987, one week after the now infamous sharemarket crash. At the time fax machines were big business and many companies were selling them. However, Tony saw a hole in the market and decided to rent fax machines out instead. “Prior to the crash I was a corporate person and if I knew what I know now I wouldn’t have started my
own business.”
These days Tony is the man behind Just Water. He got the inspiration from American television shows where the water cooler was a gathering point. Also, Kiwis were getting more health conscious at the time. “Jogging was trendy at that stage.”
He was inspired to provide New Zealanders a healthy alternative to sugar laden sports drinks and was the first in New Zealand to do so. He initially introduced six water coolers with what Tony describes as a horrible advertisement. “We had an ad saying ‘do your staff drink gunk and is your water contaminated?’ Those six water coolers went out the door so fast.”
At one stage Just Water were the global leaders at providing point of use (POU) water cooling systems. Only in the last seven years has this type of cooling system become the trend. “We could have gone under, for the grace of God we had some good luck and some bad luck along the way and fortunately we survived.”
Just Water is also looking at expanding internationally. According to Tony “water is the new gold” and he believes they need to get their business right here in New Zealand and in Australia first before expanding into the American and European markets.
He is also a major shareholder in Bartercard which is New Zealand’s largest trade exchange system. He has always led from the front and has some interesting advice for those who are currently in executive positions and for those who aspire to the position. “Always act as though you are the leader and you will be the leader. Assume leadership. Do something different from what your competitors are doing.”
For Tony it is the people who are the core asset within business and for him it’s about understanding people. “You need to get people with the right attitude,” he says. “We have a mantra that you need to become part of the company, that is ‘if you are not in business for fun and profit then what the hell are you doing there’.”
“We want to enjoy ourselves and we want to make a profit and when we party we party hard.”
He also makes the point of trying to learn every name of every single person in the company, even though Just Water has more than 200 employees.
“It’s important for CEOs to learn the names of everyone in their company. I’m terrible at remembering names but I really try and the staff remember that.”
Being a good listener is also critical, according to Tony and for him it’s also giving credit to the right people when it’s due. “They know that you are listening and a lot of managers have to take the credit, but I don’t give a damn who gets the credit. If I give them the credit they will be more empowered even if I’ve had little input into it.”
The biggest thing for Tony though, when it comes to being a
CEO, is respect. “That’s important and show respect to everybody. When hiring and firing show respect.” He is also strong on showing respect and giving back to the community from where he came from.
As a South Auckland boy he is putting back into his former school, Onehunga High, to ensure the students have a head start when they head out into the world. In 2003 he gave the school two million Just Water shares and last March took 15 students from the school to New York and Washington DC for a tour of ground zero, and to understand what the White House was all about.
“We got to play Frisbee on the White House lawn.
How many South Auckland kids can say they have done that?” Tony asks. “We can open their eyes. We went on the stock exchange floor; we met people who had experienced 9/11 close at hand. Some of these things aren’t pretty. It was a life changing experience and it was tremendous to see the changes in them, they are dynamic kids.” He was also the driving force behind the Onehunga High School Business School which teaches students the basics behind financial management and freedom.
“We are terrible in New Zealand at giving business skills to kids and when they come out of school they have no financial training and are bloody hopeless,” he points out. “We teach them how to budget and understand all those things and I believe if we do that then that’s the key to economic prosperity for this country.”
He is also pushing for business studies to be made mandatory in the national curriculum. “This is so important and people should know something about managing money. I think one, or preferably both of the major parties should have it in their manifesto. The winning political party should certainly have it.”
When it comes to giving back to the community it is off his own back and out of his pocket, rather than through the company. He doesn’t believe in corporate philanthropy and believes shareholders have the right to do what they want with the money.
“Companies shouldn’t go and give a mill to a charity without the shareholders having their say. I would rather give my own. The two million shares I gave Onehunga High gives them a dividend of about $100,000 a year so they can do special things.”
Tony is estimated at being worth in excess of $85 million dollars and blushes when I ask him a question about being on the rich list. He has managed to avoid too much publicity surrounding the lucrative list. “It’s embarrassing!” he laughs.
“On the other hand people in New Zealand say that we have tall poppy syndrome. You just have to do your thing and don’t worry too much. Aussies are very vocal about success and it’s really interesting because there is a lot less ostentatiousness than what you get in Auckland.”
