Advancing Our Reputation on the World Stage

Four internationally successful New Zealanders – digital entrepreneur Claudia Batten (pictured), Shrek director Andrew Adamson, investor Neville Jordan, surgical robotics technologist Dr Catherine Mohr – have been celebrated for advancing our reputation on the world stage.

The New Zealanders, and one “friend of New Zealand” American technology entrepreneur and Kiwi Landing Pad director Craig Elliott, were honoured at the 2014 World Class New Zealand Awards held in Auckland.

Batten, 39, was named the youngest ever Supreme Award winner. She stood out as not only a serial entrepreneur but also for her “degree of engagement” in supporting other New Zealanders in the start-up scene, according to one of the judges, Phil Veal.

Colorado-based Batten, who began her career in commercial law, was a founding member of two highly successful entrepreneurial ventures.

“I made a choice early in my career to deviate from the linear and safe, to instead follow what I call the squiggly path to an uncertain future. Great networks are what have allowed me to take that path with great success,” she says.

The awards, established by Kea (Kiwi Expatriates Association) New Zealand in 2003, include among past winners former Deputy Prime Minister Sir Don McKinnon, fashion entrepreneur Peri Drysdale and physicist Sir Paul Callaghan, who was recognised posthumously in 2012.

Original article by Natalie Akoorie, The New Zealand Herald, May 30, 2014.