UPDATED: Naomi Ballantyne has sold her Partners Life insurance company to Japanese life insurer Dai-ichi Life Holdings last year for around $1 billion.
That’s after starting ClubLife and sold it to ING in 2009.
She built three of the largest life insurance companies in New Zealand and founded two of them over the past 39 years.
She is the longest-serving chief executive in the New Zealand life insurance industry, which she entered nearly 40 years ago, Businessdesk.co.nz reported.
In the 2017 New Year Honours, she was made an officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to business.
She was born in Glenfield, Auckland to a religious mother who was born in Tonga and an alcoholic Canadian father.
“When I was born, it was that new subdivision that all the really poor first-home buyers built. It was the “wop-wops” back then; we were completely surrounded by horse paddocks and bush”, she was quoted by the Businessdesk as saying.
“I’m naturally happy, and that’s my mother’s nature, and it didn’t matter how hard her life got and how difficult dad was.
“She was the most magnificent, loving, funny mother and dad was very smart, but he had real alcohol problems that resulted in anger and moodiness”.
Ballantyne started working at 13.
“I’ve never stopped. I worked strawberry picking, then in a dairy, I worked in Farmers menswear,” she told Newstalk ZB.
“My parents never paid a single cent for me, not school things or clothes.”
Her father was very keen on her going to university though.
She said she didn’t see herself as an entrepreneur. She just saw herself as a do-er.
“Whenever anything needed doing or fixing, it would be given to me. What I didn’t understand is that is what entrepreneurship is. When Sovereign sold to ASB, I just left because I couldn’t lead staff who were trusting me into something I didn’t believe in.
“Then I couldn’t get a job, because I had been “that girl” who upset everyone in the market. So, I had to start my own company. There is a degree of self-confidence to say, “I know I can do it. It’s not what I would have chosen to do but now I have to do it, so I’m going to.”
“If you are prepared to do those things, then anyone can be an entrepreneur. The biggest problem is that most people who think they want to own their own business don’t want to do any of those things.
“I built three of the largest life insurance companies in New Zealand and founded two of them over the past 39 years. That’s careers for people, it has supported advisers, it has changed the industry in terms of products and services that are offered, and paid out a huge number of claims with products that didn’t exist before we hit the market.
“That’s something I am really proud of. It doesn’t mean I am not terrified at times, because there are a whole bunch of people following me and depending on me.
“But each time you overcome a hurdle, you have more confidence that you’ll make it over whatever the next hurdle is. You don’t need to be the smartest person in the room, and you won’t have all the answers.
“If you’re the boss, you have the luxury of calling the last shot. It is okay to seek ideas and opinions, then take the best one and give credit for it. Because there is no risk to your position, or mana, or your status”.
EDITOR’S NOTE:
This story was edited to reflect the fact that Ballantyne was not the first Tongan billionaire as previously claimed in the first version. Ballantyne contacted us about our story and made the correction. She said: “I sold Partners Life for just over NZ $1b but I am not a billionaire as there were many other shareholders, including our majority shareholder Blackstone. All previous reporting of the transaction has been accurate in this regards, so I would really appreciate your correcting this too. I have done very well, but definitely am not in the billionaire league”
