Originally from Dingle County Kerry in the South West of Ireland, Shaun entered the workforce straight after school and says he had some eye-opening early work experiences, including a stint as a ‘slaughterman’ in a freezing works.
Shaun met his future wife while travelling in New Zealand and decided to stay in the country long term. He worked his way up to a middle-management position in the retail industry, but says he had concerns that he would struggle to advance further without a tertiary qualification.
“I received some great advice from my manager to try for the Victoria University part-time Certificate in Management Studies,” says Shaun. “I applied and used my management experience to strengthen my application.”
Shaun says the Certificate was a stepping stone towards a Post-Graduate Diploma in Business Administration, and later an MBA. “I actually told people from day one I was doing an MBA,” laughs Shaun, “a pretty big gamble to be honest. Thankfully, I met the required grade averages and over the next few years I completed my MBA.”
Shaun now lives and works in Singapore, but he got his first taste for doing business in Asia through his studies at Victoria.
“One of the final modules in my MBA was International Business Management, after which I joined a group trip to southern China. We spent a very hot and busy week visiting New Zealand businesses operating in Hong Kong and around the Pearl Delta region,” says Shaun.
“This was a great way to experience applying the theory of international business into practice, and it gave me a real sense of the true scale of big business in Asia. It was also a fantastic way to witness first hand Kiwi ingenuity rolled out on an international scale.”
After completing his MBA, Shaun moved to Auckland and worked at a marketing agency before joining Xero. In his current role as Xero’s Regional Sales Director, Shaun runs the company’s general market operations in Asia and builds the base of accountants and bookkeepers there who use the software.
Shaun says he enjoys making a difference to how small businesses operate, and also appreciates having the opportunity to develop as a leader. “Xero has a strong culture of servant leadership that really appeals to me. I'm committed to creating an environment where my team can thrive and succeed—if that's done right, we all win.”
It doesn’t come without challenges, though. “Building a sales-led business in multiple countries simultaneously is a challenge in itself with a lot of moving parts. Your energy and focus is inevitably finite, and it's critical to make sure you're always assessing whether what you're doing right now is driving you to meet your objectives.”
Shaun enjoys the fast pace of life in Singapore and can see commonalities between the city-state and other places he’s lived. “Singapore has a population of 5.4 million in a land mass .027% of all of New Zealand, making it a lot more bustling. But under the surface of the obvious cultural differences, people are built the same and just want to do well for themselves and their families.”
Despite moving away from New Zealand, Shaun says he really values the time he spent here and will definitely be back to live.
“The New Zealand Inc. brand is popular across Southeast Asia,” he says. “Victoria is well known in Singapore, and my studies there have helped open doors and connect me with other New Zealand business leaders here.
“To me, a degree is a badge that says ‘I'm determined, a fast learner and have resilience and grit’. Victoria provided me with the backbone of what's been a fast-growing career to date.”