Jill Cowling, chief executive officer at Blue Star Group New Zealand, has taken out the number one position at this year’s New Zealand Printer Power 50 Awards.
Ricoh New Zealand sponsored the event held at Ponsonby Central in Auckland. Accepting the award, Cowling spoke passionately about the industry, noting, “This industry is compassionate — print evokes emotion and we should be really proud of that. Print has a really strong future. It is emotive, it is engaging, it changes people's lives and it is beautiful and we should be proud that we are in the print industry.
The night was MC’d by Bruce Craig, the New Zealand printer editor of Australian Printer’s sister publication, who spoke in Māori for the opening 20 minutes, also delivering his speech in English.
Last year’s winner Simon Ellis, managing director of PMP New Zealand, joined Fred Soar, managing director of Soar Printing, and David Atkins, managing director of Image Centre Group rounded out the top four at the event.
Mike Laursen, commercial and industrial print manager at Ricoh New Zealand, said, “To all the nominees, whether or not you are in the top 50, it is a testament to what you are doing inside your businesses. If it was easy then everyone would do it. On behalf of Ricoh, congratulations.”
Ruth Cobb, general manager, Print NZ, says, “I would like to congratulate every one of the finalists that were nominated for these awards – you are the people in the industry that drive and strive to create new products and develop new things.
“There are exciting things to come and print is never going to go away and so it will continue to be a collaboration between printers, suppliers and working with their customers to develop solutions for the things that they want to do and also to make customers understand the things that print can do.
“We might be competitors on a day to day basis, but overall we need to work collaboratively to educate people about the value of print and the role that it plays, and how effective it is and how sustainable it is and get rid of those negative messages that we hear about. That is a job that we all have to do.
“The people that are recognised this evening, are not just working hard in their businesses, many of them are also working hard for their industry as well – providing expertise, resources, funds or their time to ensure that the industry does grow and develop.”
This year, the second Power 50 went through a change of format as New Zealand Printer came under new ownership. Printer Media Group, a subsidiary of Australia’s biggest business to business publisher Intermedia Group, acquired New Zealand Printer along with its stablemates Australian Printer and Proprint. After receiving feedback from the industry, Printer Media Group made the decision to make the awards peer-voted and also had them audited through accountants PKF.
You can find the full Power 50 2018 list in the December issue of New Zealand Printer.
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