Renata Blair is a bridge between worlds – in his role at BNZ, he’s opening doors to the rapidly growing Māori business sector by aiding the bank’s understanding and connection to Te Ao Māori | Content partnership
As the oldest part of New Zealand’s economy, the sector of Māori-led business is taking what they own and what they have been owed and leveraging it into an economy that could prove to place more weight on sticking around through the generations rather than making a quick buck.
That's what Renata Blair, general manager of Māori business at BNZ, says speaking from the BNZ offices on Queen Street. It's a felicitous place for him to do his work - on the same spot two centuries ago, Ngāti Whātua would have been pulling up their waka for trading purposes.
Blair is professionally placed as a bridge between worlds, offering Māori organisations a way into the bank that understands the world they come from.
“Māori need to see themselves being in a bank, working in a bank. The more that [the bank has] a culture which they can recognise, or capability in Māori culture, the more Māori can see themselves here doing good business, or working here,” he says. “We need to change to reflect the community that we serve, and Māori being the indigenous nation, we need to make sure we are doing work there."
He talks about a "good tension" for Māori organisations who balance collectivist cultural values with succeeding in a capitalist marketplace that incentivises individualism - a view that could also place these organisations to rise to the top when it comes to economic and environmental sustainability.
The asset value of the Māori economy has grown from about $16 billion to $70 billion in the last 20 years, with larger Māori enterprises forming around a fifth of the asset base.
Ongoing treaty settlements have played a part in this growth, but it’s only a fraction: about $4 billion. However, Blair says in a post-treaty settlement world, banking and financial services are a good place for Māori to place their young people.
“We see it as a great career for Māori,” he said “They are now at a position to manage their post-treaty settlements.”
He says for the generation before, there was a greater focus on encouraging Māori to upskill in areas like healthcare or law - especially as iwi negotiated redress with the Crown for past offences.
But as that need begins to be filled, he says there’s room for business expertise within Māori communities and organisations.
There’s be a willingness to take a long-term approach in investments among Māori, Blair says. A tribe by its very nature has a committed view onto its future generations that corporations don’t necessarily carry. Blair says Māori organisations at the moment are “lowly geared”, taking a patient approach to growth - something that may change if technical financial skills are invested in within Māori organisations.
BNZ recently provided financing to Ngāti Toa Rangatira, which Blair says is a significant iwi transaction which will produce long term benefits for iwi members.
The iwi have also partnered with the government as part of the Treaty settlement process.
"These are mutually beneficial projects to the iwi and the government and an example of the Treaty of Waitangi in action through purchase of lands for the economic, social and cultural benefit of not only Ngāti Toa but also for the communities they serve," Blair says.
These are large scale deals where iwi lands are returned with a government tenant working in partnership with education outcomes for their communities in the Porirua district.
Blair says it's a great example of utilising a specialised financing structure for infrastructure: "aligning the tenor of financing with the intergenerational nature and kaitiakitanga of the assets.”
He says the cultural awareness and competency developed by BNZ has allowed the bank to make transactions with iwi partners with long-term horizons.
KPMG Māori national industry lead Riria Te Kanawa said sustainability is a central focus for the Māori economy.
“We must be sustainable – environmentally, culturally, socially and financially,” she says. “Sustainability is the ability to ensure that we can continue to do what we do today, forever into perpetuity - and what that means is your actions today cannot adversely impact your ability to undertake those same actions in the future. You can’t be extractive and consider people and papatuanuaku as merely inputs into a profit generating system – balance is critical”
But how does that square with operating as a business, within a system which can prioritise profit over sustainability?
Quite simply, although not easily Te Kanawa says. Failure to consider sustainability of the people and environment will adversely impact profits.
Te Kanawa says the emerging generation of consumers simply demand that businesses improve their game and investors managing risk are actively considering ESG (environmental, social and governance factors) so in short, capital and customers are driving the marriage between the two.
The convergence of profit and sustainability is gathering pace as reporting standards for businesses require them to disclose the opportunities, risks and impacts of and to their business in relation to climate and for nature on a voluntary basis, at least for now.
She says the business world is already heading toward aligning with Māori values: it's more about the pace at which this happens and there is an opportunity for key players such as financial institutions to play a strong role in supporting the growth of Māori economy in a way that reflects their own values.
Going back to early business roots, Te Kanawa says trade has long been a part of the Māori world.
“Our people traded, whether it’s for dollars or not, they traded: they grew crops, had processing operations and traded not only between themselves but also abroad with trading ships going off to Australia with flour and flax, so the notion of business is not foreign to Māori. We have had to come through a very difficult period where those things were impacted but we are coming out of it.”
That’s the “good tension” Blair speaks of - bringing a collectivist way of doing things into an individualist world.
“Māori should always have this collective approach, but embrace this other worldview as well,” he says.
Te Kanawa stresses that it’s the pre-settlement assets that form the largest part of the Māori economy, rather than money from treaty settlements.
“One thing I see the media really hanker in on is this $69 billion figure. But it’s not annual income, it’s a capital base - a capital base that serves 800,000 people,” she says. “The other thing that they talk about is that those assets are all from the Government. But actually it's only about five percent of that has come through the treaty settlement process, the rest is in intergenerational assets. A large proportion of that value is tied into our whenua, our turangawaewae.”
Despite the successes of Māori stakeholders in the last two decades, Te Kanawa says the financial system is still not always welcoming to Māori.
“The whole system is really geared towards the individual person or corporate person,” she says. “Our financial institutions aren’t actually well-equipped to deal with the informal collective… those institutions could be an incredible enabler for unlocking further Māori economic potential within the Māori sector if they could work out how to engage with the informal collectives.
"These are distinct from the formalised iwi entities, trusts and incorporations that the system has come to recognise and work with over time,” she says. “We are really talking about whānau who don’t have a formalised structure – a group of whānau members wanting to collectively invest or buy a house together.
“The system is still requiring one of those to take the risk on behalf of everyone else. It’s really time to consider how institutions shape their policies, risk assessment and management approaches through targeted products and services to fit the needs of these informal whānau collectives. This is where so much intergenerational wealth creation potential sits.”
She says it’s a matter of supporting institutions to rethink their approaches rather than reshaping how Māori operate to fit within their existing system, policies and processes.”
With a largely regional Māori asset base with financial institutions playing their role through innovation, reverse urban drift is a trend both Blair and Te Kanawa are excited by.
“Many Māori people were part of an urban drift of sorts as they left their homelands to attend tertiary education and then established their careers and businesses in the cities, always with the intention of returning home when the time was right to contribute,” Te Kanawa says.
She says the combination of the growing economic potential in the regions, the desire of many to serve their own people and the ability to work from anywhere with remote working paints an exciting picture of what is possible in terms of regional prosperity.
“Economic potential and talent is a powerful force that will not only be good for Māori, but good for the communities.”
Blair says he is excited whenever he sees a member of an iwi leave the city to return home.
“Iwi economies are at a level where they are coming back,” he says.
“You have more purpose when you're there.”
But how can financial institutions better engage with Māori to leverage the growth of this part of the economy?
Te Kanawa says it could just be a matter of showing the institutions how, adding that there’s one main thing anybody wanting to work with Māori need to focus on:
“If you want to be working with Maori businesses and organisations - relationship, relationship, relationship, relationship, relationship, relationship.”
She says the most important thing is to be able to understand the Māori point of view - their objectives, what the value and how they think - and not come at business relationships from a totally different paradigm.
But how can tangata manuhiri achieve this?
Blair says it’s about doing the homework.
“Do your research, understand tribal structure, look at their history - and the business will flow.”
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