Waikato Business News | January 12, 2024

JANUARY 2024
WAIKATO BUSINESS NEWS 5
Straight teeth – and good luck
Viv Posselt was in Cambridge last month when entrepreneur
Diane Foreman told her story.
Diane Foreman’s start in life was less
than auspicious.
She was the unwanted child of a
teenaged mother who rejected her not once,
but twice. She was told all young women
needed was straight teeth and an ability to
type, and by her late teens, was herself an
impoverished single mum.
With such odds stacked against her, there
was little to suggest she would become one
of New Zealand’s most successful business
leaders. Diane was, however, a determined
young woman with a thirst for knowledge
… one who with gritty self-discipline and a
fair dollop of good luck went on to lead an
extraordinary life.
She told her story to the final Cambridge
U3A gathering for 2023.
Now in her early 60s and married to
broadcaster Paul Henry, she remains wedded
to the entrepreneurial world. She has run
businesses across multiple sectors, is involved
in recruitment and runs a large residential and
commercial real estate portfolio. She serves
on private company boards, dividing her time
between New Zealand and London where she
consults to international businesses; has built
and on-sold successful ventures, run massive
teams and amassed significant wealth of her
own.
In 2009, she was named New Zealand’s
Entrepreneur of the Year and has since become
a judge based in Monte Carlo for the World
Entrepreneur of the Year. She has taken titles
that include the New Zealand Manufacturer of
the Year, and New Zealand Franchisor of the
Year.
How she got from then to now smacks of
feisty ambition meeting with good tutelage.
Diane was adopted into a working-class
family who placed little value in books.
“I was told that education for girls
was unnecessary and all you needed
was straight teeth and an ability to
type,” she said.
Against her will, she left school
at 15 then worked as a shorthand
typist and developed her other
‘must have’, a good telephone voice.
By age 18, the first of three seismic
events occurred – she upgraded to
a job as secretary to the secretary
of New Zealand businessman, Sir
Robert Kerridge. It was a lowly role, but
as she attended board meetings and
typed up minutes, she absorbed
by osmosis the ideas of the
top businessmen of the day.
By her early 20s, Diane
was mum to two children,
one of them adopted, with
no marriage. To make
ends meet, she worked her
day job, typed university
students’ theses at
weekends and rented out
rooms in her home.
“I know what poverty
looks like, what it's like to
not have enough to pay
the power bill. I shared
baths with the children,
turned lights off three
days a week. We were dirt
poor.”
She and an equally poor
friend purchased a purple
skirt and black blouse that
became a shared ensemble
for important outings like
dates or interviews.
New Zealand entrepreneur Diane Foreman, left, was introduced at the Cambridge U3A meeting by her
CONTINUED ON PAGE 8 former step mother-in-law, Yvonne Foreman. Photo: Viv Posselt
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Contact the Bayleys Waikato Commercial
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Jan Cooney
Head Commercial Property Management -
Waikato, Bay of Plenty and Taranaki
027 408 9339
jan.cooney@bayleys.co.nz
David Cashmore
Director, Bayleys Commercial - Waikato
021 943 305
david.cashmore@bayleys.co.nz
Gert Maritz
Senior Facilities Manager -
Waikato, Bay of Plenty & Taranaki
027 230 2514
gert.maritz@bayleys.co.nz
Rasa Gecaite-Vienazindis
Commercial Property Manager - Waikato
021 077 7873
rasa.gecaite@bayleys.co.nz
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