Greg Foran - CEO, Air New Zealand
I grew up in a house where everyone did their bit. You showed up, you worked hard and you treated people right – no matter who they were. That’s what shaped me – not a big break.
This simple but effective philosophy which was very evident in our chat on Friday – just even the generosity of the time Greg spent with me. I was struck by his ethos of hard work – he still works long hours whereas some seasoned CEOs might have gone into full delegation mode. I am sure that Greg got his breaks – but perhaps, referring back to my previous interview with Vedran Babic, he increased his ‘luck surface area’ through sheer hard graft.
I started my career on the Woolworths trainee programme and endeavoured to make the very most of it.
It’s great early career advice – to make the most of everything that is available. As my grandmother preached: all experience is good experience. It also reminded me of Nicola Nation, who treated her first job (at Deloitte) as an ‘apprenticeship’ and tried to squeeze everything out of it.
I have never turned down a role someone asked me to do. It didn’t matter whether it was perceived as an upwards trajectory or downwards, I got on and did it to the best of my ability. I saw it as “sensible risk taking” and backed myself.
Backing yourself, take sensible risks, putting yourself outside of your comfort zone, working your hardest once you’re there – it’s clearly got Greg far and imagine it would work for anyone. It’s a simple formula to try to combat imposter syndrome too.
It’s also symptomatic of the New Zealand market – where there are fewer deep, niche roles and more wide, generalist roles. It is a great recipe for ‘range’ - almost like your own General Electric management programme – except Kiwis have done every role not by management training design but because there wasn’t anyone else to do it! Greg thinks this is a Kiwi superpower and the reason why so many Kiwis do well overseas at big companies– providing that you can cope with scale.
Being able to relate authentically to the frontline is invaluable.
A side effect of having to step into all the role is that you’ve walked in the shoes of your front line workers which helps you to connect. In Greg’s case, while he was the CEO of Walmart, he would work in the distribution warehouse and stack the shelves, similarly at Air New Zealand he spend his weekend checking in customers at the airport. For Courtney Johnson, she worked front of house in galleries and this also left a lasting impression on her. These first-hand insights are really valuable to a senior leader.
Missing out on the CEO role at Woolworths Australia felt like a setback, but it pushed me to look beyond the familiar.
For Greg, this meant leaving Australia and heading to the US with Walmart. They didn’t have a precise role for him when he got there – they thought they would figure it out and Greg trusted it would work out. After four months, Walmart posted Greg to China where he ran Walmart’s operations for two years. He was then promoted head up all of Asia for Walmart but after just 8 weeks, he was asked to take over the US operations.
No careers (even the most stellar ones) are without their setbacks. Being open to pivoting means you can take advantage of previously unseen opportunities and keep moving forward.
I just kept showing up, doing the work and trying to be useful. Nothing fancy.
A simple formula that anyone and everyone can apply to their careers and/or their lives. I’ve spoken before about righteousness being the enemy of advancement (a trap I have fallen into once or twice). This is the opposite and it clearly works. It’s something that anyone can do – which means great leaders can come from anywhere.
To me integrity matters. I’d tell myself that integrity is a long game. Every short cut we take matters. Build your reputation honestly and you’ll never need to look over your shoulder.
Integrity matters. But here also is a positive side effect of integrity – if you’re never having to look backwards, you are always looking forwards, which means all your energy is going in one positive direction.
It reminds me of another quotation from a wise man, Mahatma Ghandi, who once said: “Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.”. I try to live by this, partly because the negativity from being out of line is energy consuming – and who has any spare energy?
Candour is also an attribute I’ve come to admire - use it well and will it save you a lot of time.
‘Use it well’ is the key part of this. You need to have the skills to deliver candour in a palatable way. The concept of ‘radical candour’ is a helpful starting point, with the main concept being that good intentions need to underly the candour – helping you to be clear and kind.
Attributes are often much more critical than skills. Skills are something you can teach and learn, while attributes are guidelines and features that are more inherent.
We discussed the value of attributes vs. skills during our conversation and how the former are harder to change, as they are more inherent to someone’s character, than traditional hard skills that can be more easily acquired. It’s not to say people can’t change attributes either – but it’s harder… His performance reviews of his teams therefore focus on attributes including: speed, agility, calmness under pressure, curiosity, responsibility, reliability and decision-making ability.
Caring about culture, holding your nerve and leading with a sense of greater purpose are also great traits.
Some of these go hand in hand. If you lead with a greater purpose then you’re more likely to hold your nerve. If you care about your culture, your people are more likely to follow you lead – and you’ll go further together.
Also keeping an open mind, being curious and a strong desire to improve outcomes for all stakeholders
We chatted about the recent improvements he has led at Air New Zealand such as its landmark partnership with OpenAI, the first of its kind in New Zealand. There is no doubt that Greg’s overseas connections are being leveraged to Air New Zealand’s benefit but I think what has been key to these developments is not the connections but the curiosity and leveraging it to search for better outcomes. He puts into action his own philosophy: “Never stop asking: ‘how can I make this better?’”
The people who will thrive with AI are those that are open, adaptable and curious.
In a world of rapidly advancing AI ability and use cases, it is easy to become overwhelmed. I’ve read about how subjects such as philosophy will become more useful as AI expands. But philosophy can feel out of reach. However, curiosity, openness, adaptability – these are states of minds that we can all adopt. AI becomes exciting and a tool to unlock outcomes we couldn’t hope to achieve previously. A reason to engage for even the AI sceptics.
Work hard, be decent, learn fast.
An accurate summary of Greg’s approach which has clearly worked wonders for him. Thanks so much Greg, for your time and sharing your wisdom with me. I’ll learn it and try to apply it as fast as I can.
I had the pleasure of a long conversation with Greg Foran one Friday afternoon in July 2025. I took the pearls of wisdom from that conversation and, with Greg’s blessing, turned it into an interview to share with you. As always with CEO 101, we cover his pathway to CEO, but we also break new ground, discussing how Kiwis can get ahead overseas, the merit of attributes vs. skills, and the life-long value of curiosity.
Having not recorded our conversation, I have used previous on the record comments from Greg and added my own commentary based on our chat. The majority of these quotes are extracted from his recent interview with Pinnacle Post, who aims to inspire success in Waikato’s next generation. You can read the full interview here.
