Admittedly her business Sequel Events hasn’t been around as long as the iD Dunedin Fashion Week but she has been intimately involved in a good number of the iconic shows now, even mixing her modeling abilities with her organisational duties.

Victoria, an old girl of St Hilda’s Collegiate, remembers being more inclined towards maths, science and music but couldn’t decide on a career direction.

“I had always been interested in having my own business one day but didn’t know what area that was going to be in. But I liked the idea of being my own boss and being in control.”

Victoria headed off to the University of Otago to tackle accounting, with management, marketing and even tourism papers thrown into the mix.

She took time out to get a taste of professional modeling in Auckland – something she had begun doing in her final year of school – but she didn’t enjoy the waiting and not knowing when her next job would be, so she returned to finish her B.Com.

“I now do all the accounts for my business and all the events I do. Event management allows me to do lots of varied and diverse things which is something I have really done all my life.”

Degree in hand she began searching for opportunities, including event management, something she had developed a taste for after having been involved in stage productions and modeling shows.

The opportunity for work experience with Annemarie Mains soon led to a full-time position, working on a range of projects, including the iD Dunedin Fashion Week, where Victoria was even able do a little bit of modeling.

“It was quite interesting – having to brief the security team while I was standing there in full hair and make-up, ready to model.”

Like many young Kiwis, Victoria had the travel bug and headed to London for a year, hooking up with one of her sisters and several school friends in London.

Although she looked at modeling as a work option it soon became clear she could make more money in accounting.

“I ended up with the London Ambulance Service’s purchasing department. They were working on a new multi-million dollar computer system for all their call centres – so it was pretty interesting.”

Victoria had planned to stay longer and do more travelling but was contacted by Annemarie who was planning to move out of event management.

“I knew that if I didn’t come back and take up that opportunity, someone else would. It is not a very big industry in Dunedin.”

Sequel Events now has a number of high profile events on its books, such as the iD Dunedin Fashion Week, the Rhododendron Festival, Go Otago and the Otago Career Festival.

The iD show is the biggie – an iconic event that is run by a committee which basically employs Victoria to be its arms and legs.

“It’s a huge team of people involved and the great thing is that most of the contractors, like the sound and lighting and staging, have been working on it for quite a few years. They all absolutely love the event and want it to stay in Dunedin and it does seem to be getting bigger every year.”

This year, for example, the railway station show, with its unique 110-metre catwalk, had to be repeated on a second night to cater for demand, with 1500 people both nights.

“I think some people from out of Dunedin don’t realise it is a week-long event, not just the railway station show. There are the iD Dunedin Emerging Designer Awards, which is an international competition – and I really love that event,” says Victoria.

“It attracts designers from all over the world. Last year it was won by someone from Israel and this year a guy from Croatia won it.”

There were 25 local designers in the iD railway station show and 28 finalists from ten different countries in the Emerging Designers Award show at the Lion Foundation Arena in front of 1000 people.

Local designers enjoy the twin spin-offs of greater exposure and getting more orders. There are also great spin-offs for Dunedin with about a quarter of the people at the show coming from out-of-town, as well as extensive media exposure.

Victoria says she loves the challenge of the events she is involved in and finds the city council, the business community and the wider community extremely supportive.

“I love working here and living in Dunedin. If you’ve got a good idea or someone comes to you with a good idea you generally will make it happen.”

Catwalk photographs are from the iD Dunedin Fashion Show, 2010; Photos – Chris Sullivan, Seen in Dunedin; Models @ AliMcD Agency

His wife Anne Mannion, a senior speech therapist, has a strong connection with the city, having lived here for a number of years after initially emigrating to Invercargill 20 years ago, before moving to Dunedin, which quickly became her spiritual home.

Former university friends, the pair reconnected about 10 years ago and Anne always made it clear that a return to Dunedin was high on her wish list.

Tim, who had founded the highly successful UK-based industrial design company Canard Design Limited in 1995, required little persuasion to take on the challenge of setting up a New Zealand branch of the company and is convinced he has picked absolutely the right place to do it.

A large part of Canard’s core business is within the healthcare and scientific industries, says Tim, so he feels right at home working out of the University of Otago’s Centre for Innovation.

“I cannot believe the wealth of capability buried in this city. The medical and clinical research output is astonishing,” he says.

“For the past 25 years I have been working with universities and latterly with the National Health Service in the UK but I have never experienced a place like Dunedin before.”

Canard, with its core staff of five plus a number of specialised associates, has worked with a wide range of clients over the years, from what Tim describes as the ‘Fred in a shed’ inventors, all the way through to large companies and organisations.

That has meant working within a diverse range of specialties with equally diverse specifications, outcomes and deliverables. This has ranged from the extensive redesign and development of existing products in order to improve performance, ergonomics and economy all the way through to leading edge innovation in new and original products.

Most recently Canard Design worked in close collaboration with a UK client in the design, development and implementation of an industry leading particle sensing unit. The final outcome resulted in a lower cost but higher performance product which thoroughly met the needs of the end user.

Collaborating with a health industry supplier they developed an injection moulded plastic arm splint to remove the need for costly and time-consuming wet plaster casts. Invisible to x-rays it also has the added bonus of a special lining that can move and change shape to allow for swelling and avoid complications.

Virtual reality products have also figured large in their work, designing virtual cricket and football challenges, including the special helmet, equipment and interface required to make the game playable.

Tim is equally excited by Dunedin’s already well established design culture which has been brilliantly nurtured by both the University of Otago’s Department of Design Studies and Otago Polytechnic’s School of Design.

He is also impressed by the engineering resource and capabilities of local companies such as Scott Technology and Farra Engineering who already have an established international reputation.

“The capability and resource is here to make a huge impact on the local and national economy.”

Tim admits it would be simple to make a reasonable living by supplying his skills back into his UK clients but that is not what drives him.

“It is the opportunity to collaborate with local individuals and companies to legitimately explore and mutually exploit the resources, intellectual endeavor and capability that are here that challenges and excites me.”

Tim says that having office space in the University of Otago’s Centre for Innovation has given him stimulating daily contact with other innovators, as well as feedback and support.

“The people you meet and the technology you come across just blows me away. It is the most fertile environment I have ever been in.”

Tim and Anne are also enjoying the positive lifestyle change, choosing to live about 30 minutes north of the city on a half-acre section in the seaside town of Waikouaiti.

“I used to take 55 minutes to drive just 12 miles to work in the UK – even though half the trip was through countryside.

“I now have a beautiful journey in and it is no distance at all.”

ADInstruments beginnings go back to the 1980s when a young Michael Macknight finished high school and headed for the University of Otago to tackle the time-honoured science of physics and the new fangled discipline of computer science.

Casting round for a third year computer science project in 1985 Michael was aware that his father, Professor Tony Macknight – who was at that time the head of the Department of Physiology at the University of Otago – was unhappy with the performance of their old oscilloscopes and paper chart recorders. Developing a computer-based data acquisition system seemed like the perfect challenge.

“The Macintosh had just come out and I felt that here was a computer simple enough for people to use, without needing to understand DOS and other command language,” says Michael.

As he set about designing the electronics and writing the software it became apparent they could actually replace the paper chart recorders and offer a complete recording, display, storage and analysis system.

By September 1985 Michael had built his first MacLab and began to refine it into something that could be manufactured.

His father took the prototype to a conference in Washington DC where the system was soon spotted by Australian electronics engineer Boris Schlensky, who could see its possibilities for the world market.

Boris and Michael soon founded ADInstruments and worked together to develop the system, making them a market leader in the life sciences data acquisition area.

The company continued to grow and expand with the addition of Windows-based systems in 1997. A year later their entire range of PowerLab data acquisition systems had been made both Mac and Windows compatible.

Boris has now retired but ADInstruments continues to have its marketing and manufacturing operations in Sydney, while Michael has a team of more than 30 research and development people based in Dunedin.

The company has sales offices in the United States, UK, Germany, Japan, China, Brazil, India, Pakistan, Chile and Malaysia. Aside from the Dunedin contingent they also employ 40 people in Australia,15 in the US and others around the world. They also have company has distributors around the globe. The company has now grown to the stage where it will have over 100 staff and distributors attending the next company conference in Las Vegas.

PowerLab systems are largely used in life sciences, with about a 50-50 split between teaching and research across a range of fields ranging from biology, physiology and physical education to psychology.

ADInstruments have systems in hundreds of Universities world wide, including both the Oxford and Cambridge Physiology Departments.

The company also has industry sales, covering areas such as agresearch and pharmaceuticals.

Michael says ADInstruments’ focus now tends to be on developing more and better software.

“We are mainly a software company that also builds hardware. Software-wise there is more that we can do in the area of analysis.

“In science, techniques are always changing so there are also challenges. But there are also changes in technology that we can use to our advantage – for example huge hard drives that can store more data,” he says.

Technology is also allowing them to integrate video and data recording, and these sorts of innovations can be done more cheaply now with the development of simple USB cameras.

“Web-based technology also allows new opportunities with remote access to data and greater collaboration.”

It is this very same technology that makes it easy for a company like ADInstruments to be based in Dunedin, Michael explains.

“Being in Dunedin is not an issue. A lot of the technology documentation is available on the web, so being in Silicon Valley would make no difference to our access to technology.”

Running costs are much cheaper in Dunedin, which gives them a significant advantage when working in the software industry, and staff tend to live in the city for lifestyle reasons, giving the company a greater level of staff stability.

ADInstruments has also become an important focal point for the Macknight family. Michael’s wife Kelly is involved in business as an HR and administration manager, while his father is involved as a consultant, writing educational material.

The University of Otago is an enormous resource for the company. It provides new talent for ADInstruments, who offer a number of internships each year, and it is also a great place to trial new software and equipment.

“Our customers there are a microenvironment of the rest of the world. If they have problems, people elsewhere must be too,” he says. “The great thing is we can get there quickly to sort it out.”

Michael says if he didn’t live in Dunedin, he really doesn’t know where he would live.

“I live on the outskirts, just 15 minutes away and I can walk everywhere here to do business. There are no huge disadvantages – we have everything we need.”

His role as vice president of global marketing for the major global computer graphics company Sapphire Technology involves leading a “virtual” marketing team of around 80 staff in 18 countries. That means traveling extensively, living and working half-a-world away from his old home town.

After leaving Otago Boys High School he began studying marketing at Otago but the desire to get hands-on saw him head overseas, working in various roles before moving into the computing field in the mid-90s.

Since then Adrian has worked for some of the major computing companies such as Nvidia – another major graphics company – and as a consultant for computer components manufacturer ASUS.

He tries to get back to Dunedin about three times every year, visiting his father Mike, who is the project manager on the Milne and Bremner building in Cumberland St.

But Adrian sees the project as a way of putting something back into Dunedin.

“I wanted to do something that will last longer than I do. It should be there for another 100 years with the amount of steel strengthening, high quality materials and workmanship that’s gone in. It’s a legacy I can leave.”

The fine old building has three basic levels: There is retail, light industrial and storage space on the ground floor, professional spaces on the second and two spacious luxury apartments on the third.

“You need to have mixed tenancy in a building,” says Adrian. “You invest in the future and the vision you have.”

Both apartments feature spacious master bedrooms with ensuites up on a mezzanine floor which sits snugly under the peak of the roof.

The main floor below features two large bedrooms, a luxury bathroom, modern kitchen, a dining/living area and an ‘entertainment’ room all hardwired for high-speed Internet and a complete home theatre package.

Clever design has allowed for an atrium between the two apartments to bring natural light down into the reception area shared by the spacious second floor offices below. As well as lighting, Dunedin’s ample sunlight is also harnessed by solar panels that provide water heating.

Other modern adaptations include a lift and a suitably industrial looking steel staircase designed to meet current building standards.

But many of the bond store’s original features have been cherished, such as the original strong room and some fascinating Chinese graffiti, seemingly the work of one Hung Chang, which appears to date back to 1914.

At the time of writing the building was ready to accept new tenants.

While Adrian has had properties in other parts of New Zealand it is the Dunedin one that has been closest to his heart.

“There is something about Dunedin – it’s in your blood. It gets in and it stays in.”

His hope is that with endorsement from his French wife Magali, at least some of his children will go to University at Otago, even though they are growing up so far away.

Adrian is bullish about Dunedin’s prospects because of its still untapped potential and the way people here go about their business.

“It’s the Scottish influence – they ferret away money for hard times.”

But his bullishness also comes with a timely warning.

“Dunedin needs a lot more investment put into it,” he says.

“The city has a real soul to it – but you have to put things back, you have to invest.”

Adrian believes that the key to the city’s future lies in developing the waterfront.

“Dunedin needs to capitalise on that beautiful harbour. Anywhere else in the world they would spend millions developing it,” he says.

“You need to capitalize on what you have now, while at the same time looking 20 years into the future. Investment in the long-term assets is like people – it sometimes takes time to materialize, but if done right secures the future.”

As managing director of Perreaux Industries, he oversees the manufacture of high quality audio amplifiers and other components that are sought after by high end audio aficionados throughout the world.

Relocating the company from the hustle and bustle of Auckland, Martin and two other key engineers made the move south in search of a higher quality of life.

“I’d been here on business several times in the past and always thought ‘wow! What a great place’,” says Martin.

Fortunately for Perreaux the manufacturing model has changed dramatically in the last ten years. In today’s electronically connected world, components and services are sourced from all four corners of the globe, effectively negating any potential benefits that a larger city like Auckland may offer over a smaller centre such as Dunedin.

“The move south has brought massive lifestyle benefits,” says Martin.

“Our business has also gained from increased visibility within the local community and government.”

To explain how the business operates, Martin says the greatest effort takes place at the design and prototype phase.

“This intensive and iterative process is where all the major decisions are made. One of our key advantages is in the fact that each member of our specialist team is highly skilled and plays a major part in all decisions.

“You’ve got to have a thick hide at times” adds Martin.

The process, which works superbly for the small company, has been honed over many years and is a direct reflection of Martin’s management style and the results speak for themselves.

For complex products, the design, prototype phase can start and stop and interleave with other more pressing projects over several years, Martin explains.

Once everything is finally locked in place they can then move into the production phase by ordering components, building and testing and packaging products. Naturally someone needs to market and sell products and that’s another one of Martin’s many hats.

“Our vision of producing highest quality internationally competitive products designed and manufactured in Dunedin does not necessarily mean we need make any compromise.

“Our current focus is on utilizing world class design and assembly techniques to enable our company to focus as much as possible on the design and assembly and quality control processes with as little manual soldering in our factory as possible. These are lofty ideals and soldering components by hand in our factory tends to neatly compliment the robotic assembly outwork that takes place in specialist contract manufacturing Australasian based factories,” he says.

“This gives us the luxury of living in Dunedin. We don’t desire a large unskilled workforce; we want to remain a niche manufacturer and hence are ideally suited to the Dunedin infrastructure.

“When you’ve experienced living in Auckland with its rapidly increasing population and competition for diminishing resources as I did, Dunedin is a paradigm shift of the best type.”

The balance of life that he now enjoys includes an easy commute from the company premises on the edge of Mosgiel to their nine-acre lifestyle block on the Taieri Plain.

“As opposed to a 45min stop start bumper to bumper crawl across the harbour bridge to work each day … actually there is no comparison. I stopped thinking of Auckland the day I came here and we have never looked back.

“The quality and price of housing is a delightful change. Infrastructure such as hospitals, roads, schools and rates combine with markedly reduced business lease costs and more stable Dunedin climate act as constant reminders of what an excellent decision this has been for us all.”

His wife Vicki and five kids aged one to ten love their new lifestyle and have forged new friendships easily.

“People here are easy to deal with and very upfront. If you play a straight game, life runs smoothly.

“There are plenty of good companies in Dunedin boxing well above their weight but they’re not screaming it from the roof-tops. There is a quiet easy confidence about the place,” he adds.

Martin says the future for Perreaux lies in designing even better products, keeping as much of the smart design and assembly as possible in-house while also having the best possible sub-component suppliers.

“We are on a journey to make high quality, touchstone products that people will enjoy for a lifetime. It’s a journey we are all enjoying.”

To find out more about Perreaux,  visit www.perrreaux.com

On the surface things might seem calm and conservative, but wade in a little and you will find people interested in helping new businesses with creative new ideas to succeed.

“Our slogan is: ‘Capital solutions for businesses and investment opportunities for investors’,” Parker says succinctly.

He and his business partner Mike O’Connor, a highly experienced investment director and analyst who has moved south from Wellington, have been steadily developing a pool of investors and a stable of promising companies in need of investment and development.

“There are many informal investment networks in Dunedin – particularly centred around property.   Unfortunately for a lot of businesses there are no formal networks for them to seek investment.

“We are a boutique investment bank. We work with clients to find the best solution to the problems they have,” he says.

“If it fits with our investor database we will put together an information memorandum to distribute to the database.”

That database, or investment register of professional investors, has now grown to 700 names.

When they have an investment opportunity ready to present, Parker O’Connor sends out a flyer asking for expressions of interest.

“If they like what they see in the information memorandum they can then decide if they are interested in investing.”

Parker can already point to a number of success stories, including Clocktower Games, a company that is working at the cutting edge of photo real video gaming.

Clocktower Games is headed by Luke Reid, a proven young entrepreneur who left Dunedin’s Logan Park High School at just 15 and then completed his computer science degree at the age of 19.

A decade overseas followed, sufficient time for him to  create his own Internet company,  Skinkers.com, which attracted the attention of Microsoft, to whom Luke sold a cornerstone shareholding.

“He came back to Dunedin at the age of 27 and decided to settle and he now transacts a global business from here,” says Parker.

“We put a whole business  and capitalization strategy (about $2 million) around him. There is an extremely good depth of business expertise on the register,” he adds.

“We realized logistics, distribution and marketing were going to be important so we shoulder-tapped a top local person to manage that.

“A lot of New Zealand businesses suffer from a lack of strategic management so we went to our database for someone with the expertise.”

Not only did that give Clocktower a great platform for success and lend some confidence to investors, that expertise has them on the verge of an on-line distribution deal with one of the largest players in the globe.

“All from little old Dunedin,” says Parker.

Parker says the opportunities they offer are open to anyone with an interest in investing, no matter where they are – subject to compliance with the requirements of the NZ Securities Act and any applicable legislation applying in the country where the investor resides.

“Anyone overseas who wants to invest in Dunedin can be directed onto our investment register,” he says.

“Others who return to Dunedin with reasonably good skills can be fed some contract work on projects or companies we are working with.”

Parker O’Connor is discerning about what they put in front of investors and at this stage the Company tends to carry out about one capital raising per quarter.

“There is capital support and networks for good ideas and good people. Investors don’t invest in products or markets, they invest in people, so the person behind it has to have an excellent track record and be backable,” says Parker.

Much of the capital is driven off the agricultural boom in the south, he explains.

“There is a lot of wealth and a lot of equity looking for an alternative home.”

Parker sees it as being a good fit with Dunedin’s excellent skill base and innovative approach to developing and commercialising new ideas.

“Dunedin is strong in IT innovation, Agribusiness and the services sector,” he says.

“The Internet also means you can foot it with the world’s best without being in New York, Sydney or Auckland. Plus, you can have a better lifestyle and standard of living as well.”

For more information view: www.parkeroconnor.co.nz & www.investmentregister.co.nz

Upstart brokers several million dollars of new business investment each year, mainly tapping into a core group of nearly 100 investors – largely from the Otago/Southland area – who are interested in backing new businesses.

“They either want the sort of returns they can get from a start-up business, or they want to give something back,” says Evans.

“Our focus is on businesses with rapid growth potential – companies that can be turning tens of millions of dollars in a few years, and eventually hundreds of millions of dollars.”

Most of the companies started so far have been in the ICT sector, but there have been a couple of engineering companies, including the innovative Crouching Truck venture, and a book publishing company producing niche books with medical information for children in a form they can understand.

Of the ICT companies, Evans is particularly enthusiastic about TracPlus Global – a global satellite tracking company – and Vouchermate, an electronic discount voucher system that allows retailers to offer specials online.

TracPlus Global’s key point of difference is its software system that allows the varied tracking systems run by companies and organisations to talk to each other – allowing the likes of emergency services to share up-to-the-minute onscreen tracking information with each other.

“TracPlus is a classic example – it could be a $100 million company in 10 years,” says Evans.

“Even if we only produce three significant companies in three years – that means we are on course to build ten in ten years.”

TracPlus employs eleven staff currently, but Evans points out that by the time it is a $100 million company it will be employing about 30 people.

“If we can get several companies like that we can add a lot to the economy, as these companies use few resources to generate their returns.”

Perhaps the most important part of the equation is keeping those companies in Dunedin once they have grown, Evans explains.

“That’s why we have such a big focus on ICT. All our companies are knowledge-based, not product-based,” he says.

“Until the knowledge economy took off you had to build infrastructure and links for your distribution network. Now you can do business like this anywhere.

“The Internet has given Dunedin a huge opportunity, but with many cities fighting to build knowledge economies, the important thing is people. We need to have the knowledgeable people.”

The key to retaining those people and attracting new ones is making Dunedin an easy place to build companies.

“We also want it to be fun and we want them to have a great lifestyle. Yes you can make more money in big places but Dunedin has a desirable lifestyle,” says Evans.

“It might have well under 200,000 people but it feels like a city and thinks like a city. We’re going to make it the most entrepreneur-friendly city in the world.”

A University of Otago graduate, Evans left Dunedin to pursue career opportunities but upon his return thirteen years later, he could see the seeds of potential.

“I often get asked: ‘What is going on in Dunedin? I keep hearing about great innovation.’

“I love hearing that,” he says.

They are also building an ICT cluster, bringing people in the industry together to reaffirm that feeling that they really are part of something.

“If you create an environment where they feel valued, they will want to be here.”

Evans says Dunedin also possesses enviable potential in areas such as biotechnology and agritech – areas where there is real depth thanks to the University of Otago and Agresearch Invermay.

Dunedin is also nurturing very real potential in design, largely through the design schools at the University and Polytechnic.

“We have enough people passionate enough to drive us to being a knowledge economy, and that drive will be enough to see it happen.”

Education remains a major industry for the city and the driving force for the development of intellectual capital.

“Dunedin has much of the intellectual horsepower that drives the country,” says Evans.

“The old money here is making the investment – but it will be the new money that will rebuild the city.

“People don’t necessarily have to come back but investing here allows them to be part of it.”