In Leaders Getting Coffee episode 59, our guest is Lisa King, the inspirational founder of Eat My Lunch and more recently alcohol free cocktail brand, Free AF.

She was born in Hong Kong and moved to New Zealand at the age of two. Her hardworking parents instilled a passion for education and an enthusiasm for entrepreneurial flair.

Lisa King didn’t waste that business oriented zest for life. A couple of university degrees provided her ticket to her dream jobs, in big corporate organisations that could show her the world.

The New Zealand Daily Board sent her to the Philippines, Unilever took her to the UK and the arrival of her first child brought her home. Roles in the heart of FMCG business followed at Bluebird, Cadbury and eventually back to the newly named Fonterra.

But a need to do something with purpose was stirring and, inspired by an advertisement for shoes – buy one get one free – she set up a school lunch programme that followed that same model. If sponsors would pay for a school lunch, her team would deliver that and another to students in need. It was called “Eat My Lunch” and it arrived at a time when some schools had 50 kids going without a midday meal.

They prepared the lunches in her lounge at first, and at its peak her team were delivering 2,600 free lunches and the same number of paid ones, across 45 schools, every day.

With the arrival of the Government’s school lunch programme, her work there was done and another purpose was waiting.

Lisa had decided to give up drinking alcohol, and was astounded by the social pressures and the awkward questions. She’d decided that the conversation around not drinking was broken.

And so, in 2020, despite Covid and lockdowns and plenty of reasons not to, she assembled a team and created a brand, developed recipes, and launched Free AF, an alcohol free cocktail brand with a goal to reduce the alcohol in people’s lives without sacrificing the experience.

On the Leaders Getting Coffee podcast Lisa King speaks to Bruce Cotterill about, not one, but two entrepreneurial journeys, the lessons she’s learned and the opportunities ahead. Free AF now features in more than 4,000 stores across the USA, including Whole Foods, Target and Walmart and she is very open about the hard work involved in getting established in a massive market, including the importance of keeping her team small and action orientated, jumping time zones and the funding challenges associated with order sizes you don’t expect.

This is a case study in purpose from someone who is in the process of building a global brand. It’s a must listen for every aspiring entrepreneur. Spoiler alert… it’s a lot of hard work!

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New Zealand drivers are about to discover a whole new way of paying to use the roads – and for most, it will be a shock.

For decades, petrol and diesel motorists have funded the transport network through fuel excise quietly folded into every litre at the pump - currently a 70c tax.

Soon, that largely invisible tax will give way to something much more visible – paying per kilometre under an expanded road user charge (RUC) system.

On the latest episode of The Business of Tech, I talk to Dunedin-based entrepreneur Adam Johnston about what may be the biggest shake-up to transport funding in 50 years. Light vehicle owners who have never had to think about RUC before will be pulled into a regime that currently applies to heavy vehicles, diesel cars and electric vehicles. Petrol vehicles currently make up around 55% of the national fleet.

Instead of passively paying when you fill up, you’ll be actively buying distance in advance, tracking your odometer, and keeping on the good side of Waka Kotahi.

A new marketplace for RUC payments

That sounds like a recipe for confusion and admin overload, especially in a cost-of-living crisis where drivers are already stressed about the price of petrol and diesel. But this shift is also opening the door to a wave of innovation. As the government hands more of the RUC system over to private providers, a new marketplace will emerge around how you pay to drive.

It will likely be in the form of apps that let you buy and manage your RUC from your phone, real-time dashboards that show how much you’ve used, and even telematics devices that automate the whole process by reporting your mileage in the background. Payment platforms will sit in the middle, clipping the ticket on every transaction. Start-ups and incumbents alike will compete to become your go-to RUC retailer, bundling services and perks to win your attention and loyalty.

Johnston and his co-founder, Briyarne Pascoe, both former Delivery Easy workers, are among the entrepreneurs racing to shape this new ecosystem. Building on their RUC Hub project, a free-to-access platform that tells you everything you need to know about road user charges, they saw an opportunity to make a complex system more transparent and user-friendly, while preventing the market from devolving into a cosy oligopoly. The pair plan to become a retail player in the emerging RUC ecosystem.

In the episode, Johnston explains the trade-offs between better digital experiences and the extra transaction costs that could quietly inflate what you pay overall.

This episode unpacks what’s coming, how your relationship with your car and your wallet is about to change, and the tools that could make surviving the new RUC era a little less painful. Streaming on iHeartRadio, Spotify, Apple or wherever you get your podcasts.

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How will all the spending on AI translate to bottom-line results? Infratil CEO Jason Boyes spends his days and nights thinking about data centers, and he has thoughts about where investors could see real returns.

We’re talking about the “defensive” nature of Infratil’s $11B infrastructure portfolio, and the impacts Jason anticipates from interest rate rises and shifting geopolitics. Hear about the outlook for portfolio assets from solar farms in Texas to runways in Wellington, and what’s different about the cooling technology in Infratil’s Canberra Data Centres.

Plus, why Jason believes the market is still sleeping on US renewable energy developer, Longroad.

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Investing involves risk. You might lose the money you start with. If you require financial advice, you should consider speaking with a qualified financial advisor. Past performance is not a guarantee of future performance.

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The financial year is coming to an end.

It means we’ll see a whole bunch of policies and adjustments from April 1.

Everything from crayfish catch limits and Pharmac funding to changes to the Living and Minimum wages.

Super annuitants, working families, students and beneficiaries are among those who will receive additional support.

On the law-and-order front, the government’s crackdown on drug drivers is set to ramp up.

And power bills are expected to increase, after the Commerce Commission agreed to let local lines companies, and Transport, charge households and businesses more a couple years ago.

Today on The Front Page, NZ Herald business editor at large, Liam Dann, is with us to break down what changes are in the works, and what it might mean for you – and our economy.

Follow The Front Page on iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

You can read more about this and other stories in the New Zealand Herald, online at nzherald.co.nz, or tune in to news bulletins across the NZME network.

Host: Chelsea Daniels
Editor/Producer: Richard Martin
Producer: Jane Yee

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Think you don't have enough time to start a business? In this episode, I share the exact strategy I used to build a $3.5M business while juggling part-time jobs - and how my students are doing the same. It's not about finding more time. It's about using what you already have, smarter. Your future self will thank you for starting today.

👉🏼 https://www.makeithappen.org.nz/
📲 Socials: https://www.instagram.com/makeithappen

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The Prime Minister ponders the state of the Indian FTA, the Middle East war, fuel restrictions and potential rationing, and his Cabinet reshuffle.

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The Herald CEO Pay Survey reveals the top paid CEO's in NZ. 8 out of 10 are dudes. Where are all the women?

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Questions around Indian students and family of visa holders are still roadblocks to Labour supporting a trade deal with India.

New Zealand First's left its coalition partners in the lurch, rendering them dependent on Labour to ratify the agreement.

But leader Chris Hipkins says there's a mismatch between how the deal's been presented and what the text actually contains.

Damien O’Connor, the party’s Trade Spokesperson, told Mike Hosking trade agreements don’t typically include guaranteed work permits, but this one does.

He says that Winston Peters stirred up concerns the deal will result in New Zealand being flooded with migrants, and while that’s not the reality, they had to ask questions about the provisions and safeguards for that.

O’Connor says they don’t want thousands of students and workers coming into New Zealand and being exploited.

LISTEN ABOVE

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