Antonia Watson, Outgoing CEO, ANZ New Zealand, from a speech to Māori business leaders.
As I prepare to leave ANZ after almost 19 years with the bank, including the last seven as CEO, I have spent a lot of time reflecting on leadership, decision-making and what it means to be a steward of something larger than yourself.
One definite highlight has been the bank’s creation of a Te Ao Māori strategy, Tākiri-Ā-Rangi. It has transformed the bank’s internal culture, with staff flocking to the voluntary Te Reo and Tikanga courses.
We’ve created specialist Māori banking roles and have looked deeply at our policies to change them to make it easier for Māori entities to borrow from us.
It’s still a work in progress in some areas, but I’m proud of the intent and momentum we have created, and I’m confident that it will continue.
Another of the privileges of leading ANZ has been working alongside customers, many of whom are responsible not only for generating returns today, but also for protecting and growing wealth for future generations.
Some of these are Māori commercial entities, and increasingly these investors, trusts and organisations carry responsibilities that extend beyond traditional commercial objectives.
While ANZ's role is different, the questions we grapple with are often remarkably similar.
How do you balance opportunity and risk? When should you stay the course and when should you change direction? How do you achieve greater scale without losing sight of what matters most?
These are not just investment questions. They are stewardship questions.
Throughout my career, I have learned that some of the most important decisions are not about maximising short-term outcomes. They are about ensuring that the choices we make today leave those who follow us in a stronger position than the one we inherited.
One area where this becomes particularly important is knowing when persistence remains a virtue, and when it becomes a liability.
Business leaders and investors are often encouraged to persevere through difficult periods. In many cases that is exactly the right approach. Some of the greatest value creation comes from maintaining conviction during periods of uncertainty. Markets fluctuate, economic cycles turn and worthwhile investments often take time to mature.
But persistence is not always the same as discipline, and it can sometimes become value destruction in disguise.
Sometimes organisations continue investing because they have already committed significant time, money or emotional energy. Sometimes loyalty to a project or a partner can make it difficult to acknowledge when circumstances have changed.
The hardest question is often not whether something has become difficult, but whether the original rationale still holds.
When faced with these situations, I find it useful to return to a few simple questions.
Is the original investment thesis still intact? Are there genuine signs that value is being created? What opportunities are being forgone by continuing to allocate capital to a particular investment? And perhaps most importantly, are decisions being driven by evidence and strategy, or by habit and emotion?
These questions matter because every dollar invested in one opportunity is a dollar unavailable for another.
Protecting intergenerational capital requires the courage to stay the course when patience is warranted. It also demands honesty and a willingness to change course when the facts require it.
A second lesson from my time in leadership concerns the relationship between scale and structure, something that is becoming more important as Māori investors look at larger opportunities.
As organisations grow, opportunities become larger and more complex. Increasingly, success depends on partnership. Whether in business, infrastructure, investment or community development, few organisations can achieve everything on their own.
Partnerships offer enormous advantages. They allow capital to be pooled, risks to be shared and expertise to be combined. They can unlock opportunities for Māori entities that would otherwise remain out of reach.
Yet partnerships also bring with them complexity.
Different parties bring different priorities, different time horizons and different definitions of success. The larger the opportunity, the more important governance becomes.
One mistake I have seen organisations make is assuming that ownership and influence are the same thing. They are not.
Influence can come through decision rights, governance arrangements, board representation, information-sharing protocols and clearly defined responsibilities. Well-designed structures create clarity. Poorly designed structures create confusion.
The most successful partnerships are usually not those with the most detailed legal agreements. They are the ones where purpose is clearly understood from the beginning.
In my experience, Māori investors seek structures that are commercially robust and culturally literate.
Agreements must be clear enough for lawyers and meaningful enough for kaumātua and kuia. Governance must respect tikanga and yet still support timely decision-making. Likewise, reporting must measure financial performance alongside outcomes that matter to whānau, hapū and iwi.
When those foundations are in place, scale becomes an enabler. Without them, scale can quickly become a source of friction.
The third lesson concerns risk.
Traditional finance tends to define risk in relatively narrow terms: loss of capital, volatility, liquidity and uncertainty of return.
These remain important considerations. But during my time as CEO, I have come to appreciate that many organisations increasingly think about risk in broader ways.
There is financial risk, certainly. But there is also the risk of losing influence, underinvesting in your own people, becoming disconnected from whenua, or accepting returns that come at the expense of mana or environmental integrity.
There is also the risk of being too conservative and preserving capital in a way that does not meet the needs of a growing population.
Accordingly, risk and return need to be looked at through an intergenerational lens.
And that changes the question. Instead of asking only: “What is the expected return?”, we also ask: “What kind of future does this investment help create?”
Viewed in this way, risk management is not simply about avoiding losses. It is about creating resilience while still maintaining the capacity to grow.
That is why diversification remains important. Diversified portfolios provide stability and help protect against shocks. They create options and flexibility.
At the same time, there are occasions where Māori may have a natural advantage and can lean into opportunities where they possess unique insight, knowledge or competitive advantage.
The challenge is finding the right balance.
In my experience, the strongest strategies often combine both approaches. They protect the foundation while selectively backing opportunities that can create meaningful long-term value.
What matters most is clarity. If an investment is expected to deliver social, cultural, environmental or strategic outcomes alongside financial returns, those objectives should be clearly stated from the outset. Transparency helps organisations make better decisions and evaluate success honestly.
None of this eliminates uncertainty. No board, leadership team or investment committee has perfect information. No forecast is guaranteed to be right.
The goal is not to remove uncertainty altogether, but to make it manageable.
That means testing assumptions, considering alternative scenarios, investing in capability and being honest about the risks that matter most.
As I reflect on my career at ANZ, that may be the most important lesson of all.
The strongest organisations are not those that predict the future perfectly. They are the ones that approach uncertainty with discipline, humility and a clear sense of purpose.
Whether we are running a bank, managing an investment portfolio or stewarding assets on behalf of future generations, the responsibility is ultimately the same.
Protect what matters. Grow it thoughtfully. And leave it stronger for those who come next.