Nick Astwick: CEO of Southern Cross Health Society
Join Paul Spain for a compelling conversation with Nick Astwick, outgoing Chief Executive of Southern Cross Health Society. Nick shares his journey from a Christchurch schoolboy who once dreamed of joining the police force to leading some of New Zealand’s most influential organisations.
Drawing on his experience helping to launch Kiwibank and guiding Southern Cross Health through major strategic transformation, Nick offers hard-won insights into leadership, building intentional cultures, and creating high‑performing teams. He reflects on the importance of aligning personal purpose with professional success, leading with intention, and his vision for New Zealand’s high‑growth business future.
The New Zealand Business Podcast is brought to you by One NZ and Gorilla Technology.
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Paul Spain – CEO, Business & Tech Commentator, Futurist
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Paul Spain:
I’m your host, Paul Spain, futurist and chief Executive at Gorilla Technology. I love to see individuals and their organisations thrive and the New Zealand Business Podcast is all about this, helping you learn from our most innovative and tenacious leaders. Today I’m joined by Nick Astwick, the outgoing Chief Executive at Southern Cross Health Society. Nick’s story encompasses his journey from Christchurch schoolboy with a dream of joining the police force to an impressive management and leadership career in New Zealand and the United Kingdom. Nick’s drive, grit and determination assisted him in each role, whether it be helping launch the Kiwibank brand, his rise through the ranks to become their Chief operating officer in 2012 before he took on the Chief Executive role at Southern Cross health society in 2017. We also hear about what’s ahead following his recent resignation from leading Southern Cross. The New Zealand Business Podcast is proudly brought to you by One New Zealand and Gorilla Technology.
Paul Spain:
Before we jump into the interview, a quick question to ponder. How confident are you that your mid size or smaller organisation is is appropriately leveraging artificial intelligence and other tech? And have you got your house in order from a cyber security perspective? If you’re not sure, get in touch with Gorilla Technology today to learn how a tech or cybersecurity audit could help you. Alright, let’s jump in. All right, well, greetings and welcome along to the podcast. Great privilege to have Nick Astwick joining us today. How are you, Nick?
Nick Astwick:
Thanks, I’m great, Paul, and thanks for having me today. Looking forward to it.
Paul Spain:
Yeah, well, always like to start at the beginning. So tell us a little bit around where you were born and where you grew up.
Nick Astwick:
Well, I was lucky enough to be brought up in Christchurch, in Canterbury, so I had the classic provincial upbringing in the south island, you know, on the sports fields of Christchurch. Fantastic in the cold and I guess the Nor’, westers, but very lucky. I had a great childhood growing up in provincial New Zealand. Born in 73. Yep. Left there about 94, 95.
Paul Spain:
Fantastic. So what were the hallmarks when you, when you look back at those sort of younger years of the things that you got, you know, stuck into that maybe connected a bit with later life, whether it’s leadership work, business, other kind of interests that you’d see kind of connecting up.
Nick Astwick:
Well, on reflection, I do trace a lot of the way I roll in my life today, whether it’s as CEO of Southern Cross, from that provincial upbringing. I mean, I think I, you know, we’ve all done those, you know, tests around how you think. And I’ve got an achiever mindset. So I’ve always been intentional, wanting to achieve. And that’s come from the sports fields, I believe, you know, and a competitive sport, you know, in provincial New Zealand, relationships do matter, you know, whether it’s on the sports field with others. So the ability to build relationships and work collectively is critical, I think, to leadership today. So sort of that intentionality, the ability to work with others, you know, that ability to, I guess, that community and cause has, you know, shaped, I guess, a lot of my leadership career today. And, you know, it’s been a great privilege, but it’s actually been quite foundational.
Paul Spain:
So when you look back, tell us, what did that sort of sports journey look like? What sports did you play and, you know, how did you do?
Nick Astwick:
Well, I was into everything, basically. I was Christchurch boys high lad. So in the sort of. When was that? That was 87 to 91. The Mertons and the Chris Cairns of those days went through Christchurch boys. And so I played a lot of cricket. Love cricket. First eleven, played a lot of football in those days for clubs.
Nick Astwick:
I ended up playing a lot of indoor cricket at those times, but it was triathlons and things like that, you know, in those. I think Christchurch was a wonderful place to be active. Yeah. And I gave it all. And it was. It wasn’t just the achievement in the sport, it was doing it with others. That’s what I loved. I loved team sports, the ability.
Nick Astwick:
And I sort of deeply understand in the Crusaders philosophy, a champion team will always be the team of champions. And I believe that to be absolutely true. That the culture of a team, the growth mindset, the challenging pursuit of excellence, the confronting the stuff that’s stopping us being excellent, but in a acknowledgement, not judgment way, is critical. And so sport gave me that.
Paul Spain:
And did you build something of a work ethic in terms of, you know, doing jobs and work as a youngster?
Nick Astwick:
Yeah, I did the paper round. I was the Tuesday to Thursday hour, rain, hail or shine, and Christchurch had it all.
Paul Spain:
Oh, yes.
Nick Astwick:
I would get out there, but I was brought up in a family that worked hard. I think that work ethic came from, you know, your values are largely. And your beliefs are formed in those earlier years. And they’re formed by the experiences you have. And so I was lucky enough to get great values. You know, I hated going out at times, but I did it. And so there was that really strong worth ethical around the paper round. I worked, you know, umpiring indoor cricket, which was late at night.
Nick Astwick:
So it was really, you know, my school was everything, but I would do the odd jobs around there. My first real gig though was with the national bank in island branch University Canterbury.
Paul Spain:
Yeah. Okay, well tell us about your university time, your study.
Nick Astwick:
Yeah, it was one of those ones that sort of fell into. I mean, I wanted to stay at the University of Canterbury. You know, a lot of my mates were there. I sort of, from school, I had this bent for business. And so commerce was the obvious thing that I wanted to do. I did a side of Japan. I’d studied Japanese through high school and I wanted to keep that going. And I did spend six months on a ski field in Japan to really practice it.
Nick Astwick:
But having that sort of yin and yang of business and I guess learning language and culture was really powerful for me. But I was very intentional around a commerce degree. I didn’t want to be an accountant. I sort of majored in accountancy and things like that. So as you well know, I was sort of doing that in the pursuit of this sort of weird idea that I would become a detective at some point and a policeman. And then I sort of gapped a job in the national bank and the rest is history.
Paul Spain:
Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, tell us about that. You know, what that looked like to get that role at national bank and you know, what you were doing right at the beginning?
Nick Astwick:
Oh, right at the beginning, I was a teller. Yeah, I, you know, I was sort of a. A young bloke in Canterbury, commerce degree, saw an opportunity at the national bank and just seized it. So, you know, I spent I think six months as a teller. Yeah. And I fell in love with, I guess, the service ethic, you know, serving others. I really actually enjoyed, you know, I got yelled at for asking somebody who’s been there for 30 years for their ID. But actually learning from that was critical.
Nick Astwick:
So I fell in love with first the sense of service. I actually really enjoyed financial services. I think not the products of financial services, but the impact of it. The ability to have people in homes or to build their wealth creation or just survive university and actually really enjoyed the financial services componentry of that.
Paul Spain:
You’d mentioned this interest in joining the police force. How strong was that and what, you know, at what point did it tweak in your mind that actually, you know, you weren’t gonna, you know, pursue being in the police.
Nick Astwick:
I think the quality of thinking was quite low in that one. I sort of. I did it because I sort of grew up with a lot of the Christchurch boys. High dads were in the police. And so there was that sort of hero. I want to be like that. But it dissipated pretty quickly. It dissipated pretty quickly.
Nick Astwick:
I think I found my love in the service and financial services pretty quickly.
Paul Spain:
And what did it take for you to, you know, progress within. Within the banking environment?
Nick Astwick:
I think there was, I guess my achievement mindset was there. So six months Teller banking consultant, you know, so it was probably 18 months in the branch. Loved every moment of it. But when I saw the product manager, Roland Wellington, I said, that was for me. Yeah. And so really I was quite ambitious in that sort of stuff, as you are when you’re a bit younger. I said, okay, I want to make more of this. And so I applied that role in Wellington and got that out of the branch.
Paul Spain:
Was that the first different thing that you applied for?
Nick Astwick:
Yeah, that was actually the first one I applied for. You know, I love the ethos of the National Bank. It was about customers first. You know, we’re here to serve. They really understood the value driver in banking is actually tenure of customers, not margin. They were very people centric to serve customers. So they really understood look after the people, look after the customer, look after the shareholders. I felt like that was a culture that I could be myself in.
Nick Astwick:
And so it was very. I said, that’s the brand I want to work for. What’s the next gig? And it was that one in Wellington.
Paul Spain:
And who was it within the bank that taught you that? How did you learn that? That was what the bank was all about and that was the culture. How easy was that? You know, picked up?
Nick Astwick:
Very easy. I mean, I think what I’ve learned in my careers, culture is the critical success factor. Not just a good one, but the right one for the strategy. And my definition of culture is what does the leadership care about? That is the culture of any organisation. And so what I got to see at a very young age, I had access to the leadership of national bank and you could tell very, very quickly what they care about because it is the context for their decisions. And the culture of the national bank was very visible through the actions and distort of the leadership.
Paul Spain:
And was this access to the leadership once you’d moved to Wellington, to Wellington,
Nick Astwick:
to the head office. That’s right. Yeah. Okay. And so, yeah, I had about three years or so in Wellington for the national bank and the national bank. And the learnings in those three years still is in the frontal lobe of my leadership today.
Paul Spain:
Fantastic. It was the senior leadership that you were really able to learn from or was it across the board? Cause how many, you know, how many layers of people were there? I guess, you know, it wasn’t such a big enterprise as our banks are today. Right.
Nick Astwick:
No, yeah, I can’t remember. I probably was fourth or fifth level down, you know, sort of mid management in those days. But I can tell you at the age, a ripe old age of 22, I was looking after the whole deposit side, which is half of the retail bank. Yep. At a very young age. And so I had access to, to the treasurer, I had access to the head of the retail bank, you know, and so it was a very tight. Yeah, but it was a very flat structure in that sort of sense. And so access to leadership was, was pretty obvious.
Nick Astwick:
I was green as anything as you can imagine. But I had a, you know, I had a growth mindset. I just wanted to consume and learn just how it worked at that, that point in time.
Paul Spain:
Yeah. And then what was, what was next after that three years in Wellington?
Nick Astwick:
Well, I wanted to do the classic OE, so I did the classic OE. I left in 1998, went to London. My dad’s a Yorkshireman and so I had the British passport and so I spent five years in total with two stints. Yep. Over in London and loved every moment of it. I worked for UBS Warburg, the investment bank there. We did some cool stuff like the euro conversion program that was trillions of legacy currency positions had to turn into the euro in a 12 hour window. And it was only Kiwis, South Africans and Aussies crazy enough to take on that challenge.
Paul Spain:
Yeah, I remember doing a little bit of work in London and it seemed to be sort of. Yeah, Kiwis, Aussies and South Africans were very well sought after. And in fact I did some work at a bank as well. Mine was a very short stint in between things. So that sounds like some real pressure to get that right.
Nick Astwick:
It does, but it was my first exposure to, I guess a non movable program where you’ve got to build a culture that has to deliver successfully. I mean the stakes are pretty high if you don’t. And we did it. And so I felt like at that point in time it was a really good learning of what it takes on one of those sort of critical projects. To get it right.
Paul Spain:
Yeah, yeah. And what do you think you took away from that, that experience?
Nick Astwick:
Well, it’s very similar to the sporting analogy. You gotta know what good looks like, you know, what is success well defined? You’ve actually gotta build a team that fundamentally is not. I think we’ve had 60 in that team that doesn’t work in 60 different directions. It has to be bought in to the cause and the purpose and the outcome. And so therefore it has to work as a collective, not as a set of individuals. And so that leadership is fundamentally into that one. It had to have a good dose of two things. It had to have a good dose of management, the how are we going to do it? But it also had to have a good dose of leadership.
Nick Astwick:
It had to get people to rise up, you know, to achieve the outcome, and you had to be motivated and willing to put in all your discretionary support to do that one. So I learned, I probably learned for the first time the difference between leadership and management at that point in time, you know, and so that was the lessons that were certainly learned there.
Paul Spain:
And so how do you define that today in terms of the difference between leadership and management?
Nick Astwick:
Well, if you look at. Well, leadership and management fundamentally are critical bedfellows, but leadership is ultimately about the why and what. It is around the medium to long term. It is around people and motivation, whereas management is about the how. It is about the execution of plans and the development of plans with sort of discipline. And so, you know, one is about setting the direction and why we’re going there. The other is how we’re going to deliver it. And so for me, that should have shone the light on the difference between those two.
Paul Spain:
And what did the rest of that time in the UK look like?
Nick Astwick:
Well, I kept working for UBS World Work. I did a little bit of strategy for them around their operational excellence. And I think the. In a product manager, a marketer per se, in both of those, my role was really marketing, which is around the product, the price, the distribution, how you’re going to sell, you know, the four P’s. And so that is a lot of strategy. I mean, operations jobs were really about doing tasks, you know, when you were young, into a national bank, around the deposits and you had to raise $2 billion a year. You’ve got to start learning strategy. You’ve got to learn about developing a strategy to generate those outcomes.
Nick Astwick:
And so the gift I got through those jobs was being a good marketer, a good strategist. That’s what I learned over that Period of time. And that’s probably some of the skill sets that I’ve taken into my later career.
Paul Spain:
What were the biggest pressures that were on you at that time?
Nick Astwick:
Well, I think the Euro program, it was sort of a binary success or failure. I think the big pressures on me was really the quality of my work. I had a high standard and I’m unapologetic for that. I do. In those early years I felt like my self worth was attached to my work worth. You know, if I was successful at work, I was successful as a human. Yep. Now that unravelled a little bit of my later life and I needed to put a healthy attachment to that.
Nick Astwick:
But that’s what I measured my self worth on. Was I successful at work? And so I’d always strive for high standards. I was also always strived to make sure that I produced what was sought by the leadership of the organization. But I was all in.
Paul Spain:
What was it that brought you to the end of that overseas experience and decided to bring you home?
Nick Astwick:
My love of home, really. I mean I worked five years for the UBS Warburg in two stints. I had a little stint back home, but I don’t think I heard the word customer mentioned that often. Yeah. And so for me I was a bit disillusioned with the machinery of banking and the politics of it. I had to make a decision at that point in time with now my wife is where do we want to spend our lives? And for me, you know, I thought long and hard about, you know, 20 years in London working through, working for the man, as they say, or actually coming back home and making a dent for New Zealand. And that was my personal context. I was very lucky to meet Sam Knowles and Paul Brock and Kiwibank had just started.
Nick Astwick:
I was looking for a startup and that was a real fortuitous sort of meeting at that point in time.
Paul Spain:
Yeah. So tell us how that came about.
Nick Astwick:
Well, yeah, I landed back in New Zealand looking for a startup. We wanted to spend our time back in Christchurch. Again that was in Wellington. So it was a very short move to Wellington. But when I heard about the opportunity to set up not just a bank but a brand that was rooted in the prosperity of New Zealand. One Kiwi after another and that no one wanted a bank, my marketing sort of, you know, just fired. I said, okay, this is a wonderful once in a life opportunity. It may fail miserably, but I wanted to be part of something that was significant for New Zealand and at that time that was Kiwibank.
Paul Spain:
Yeah. For those that don’t know, you probably can remind us who was it one political party or a particular politician that kind of really pushed for that to happen.
Nick Astwick:
Yeah, it was Jim Anderton in those days. Yeah, I mean, but also too New Zealand Post had a business strategy for its relevance, you know, around. Okay, how can it diversify? So there was the New Zealand Post diversification business strategy, met Jim Anderton, you know, from a political perspective. And the rest was history at that point in time. But I mean, it didn’t have the nation behind it, it didn’t have all the politicians behind us. Yeah, it was one of those. No one wanted another bank in New Zealand. And actually I don’t think New Zealand thought banking as strategic at that point in time.
Nick Astwick:
But remember in 2002, the only innovations really in banking was an ATM. You know, if you think about. And I go 2002, there was no mobile phones, there was no text messaging, there was no open the bank 24 7. It was still locked into the nine till four. And so you think in just 24 years, just the transformation of banking through the digital age was quite. And I saw that ride through Kiwibank actually challenged banking and what it stood for, not the banks. And so it was first with mobile banking, it was first with text banking. It was open seven days a week in some parts.
Nick Astwick:
So it really sort of challenged that psyche and the tradition of banking at that point in time.
Paul Spain:
Right. So where was kiwibank at when you joined? How far along in the development?
Nick Astwick:
It was about eight or nine months. I think it could have been somewhere between six and 12 months from landing in market, sort of still in post project phase. But I would just say it had just launched. And so I got that crazy five years of the startup. Then there was a five years of, oh my God, we need to actually turn this into a successful business because a successful startup and a great business, not the same thing. And so we had to go through that growing pains phase. And look, I’ve been out of Kiwibank since 2017, but I’m still very proud that there is a Kiwi bank. I think banking is really important for all banks in New Zealand.
Nick Astwick:
It’s still really important. It still, it does be a fuel of prosperity for those who want to seek it. And so yeah, it’s great to have that as part of our banking landscape.
Paul Spain:
And how hard was it to build a culture in an environment where you’re building this bank? But there’s really the connection into New Zealand Post in terms of the New Zealand Post Stuff being the front end rather than, you know, I guess what you experienced at national bank where you know, there was a very, a very clear culture, you know, across the board. Whereas I guess you’ve got this kind of, you know, crossing of two entities. Maybe you can just walk us through, you know, what, what that looked like to build out the culture.
Nick Astwick:
No, I think it was very, very intentional from day one. I mean the, I believe personally that Kiwi bank would have failed if we just tried to compete against the individual banks with better products. I mean we had to build a brand first. We had to build something. What do we stand for and what do we stand against? And so we were sort of challenging the notion of banking and how it’s been. New Zealanders have been underserved and that was what we were challenging against. So we had to build a brand first. We actually, the cultures of the two organized were completely separated from day one.
Nick Astwick:
So yes, you could see that Kiwibank lived in a New Zealand post branch for a while there, but actually behind the scenes it was completely separate. And that was very intentional. We needed a certain culture that was different from New Zealand’s post culture to be successful. And so that was separate. So I think the leadership of the bank was very intentional around what culture do we need to be successful in market and they design for that.
Paul Spain:
And then how did that play out when you had the branches sort of operating, I guess, using New Zealand post staff? Is that how that certainly.
Nick Astwick:
Exactly. Right. I mean it’s been almost unheard of that a bank can start up and be profitable by year three and Kiwibank was. And people forget that no bank has stood up and been profitable in year three. That was because we could leverage the infrastructure of the post network from a physical sense. And so it was actually a variable cost to Kiwibank and a marginal cost. New Zealand Post was quite sort of innovative in those days. I mean, when you look at successful scale businesses today, they partner well.
Nick Astwick:
Yep. That is the growth rate. They don’t try and do everything. And so, you know, we started with $80 million worth of seed money and we became profitable by year three or four or something like that. And so that was because we were smart around the business model. Now, obviously, quite rightly, the decisions you make at startup are different in time and as you can see, I mean, tell you what, the branch network model, yeah, has fundamentally been disrupted over the last 20 odd years. And so I think it was a great entry point and it allowed us to evolve the bank over time and Actually, the great thing about New Zealand post was just about in every single region, you know, and every single town and every and large amount of the suburbs of the country so we could get reach very, very quickly.
Paul Spain:
Yeah. When you, when you look back at that initial kind of, you know, startup phase, what was the biggest challenge that you were facing at that time?
Nick Astwick:
Terminal failure. It was, wasn’t it? It was, I mean, it wasn’t like there was a million New Zealanders saying, I need a bank. I mean it was a binary outcome. This was either going to be a success or it was gonna be a dismal failure. And so, but something, you know, might be blind ignorance, but actually something within a small few amount of people wanted to sign up for that job a little bit like the Euro program. And I think what I’ve learned in myself, while I have achiever mindset, I do have a reimagining mindset. I do can see a vision, want to be part of something that is meaningful. And so I signed up to that.
Nick Astwick:
But you had to be very intentional and disciplined. And you know, I learned in my early marketing career that the market buys different, it doesn’t buy better. And so you had to be very clear about how you were different and that building a brand that sort of had the Kiwi psyche, challenging banking, creating a cause and a purpose and delivering, you know, great experiences at the time that were different was really a little bit of the recipe of success. But I was just part of a team of a hundred, you know, that really did that. But it was one of my favourite times by far.
Paul Spain:
And so what was your role at the outset?
Nick Astwick:
Oh, I just started, you know, I was largely came in doing some of the market componentry for them. Head of markets rapidly moved to running sort of the consumer division. And so it was a rapid rise through the ranks. But, you know, it’s one of those classic things. You go away for London, you do some big stuff and New Zealanders go, well, that doesn’t really matter. You know, London experience is not seen by a Kiwi as anything valuable. And so it was really just getting in on that ground floor and then just going for it. And so as I say, I think I was on the executive team, I think there around about 2007 and so had 10 years as part of the leadership team at Kiewa Bank.
Paul Spain:
Yeah, fantastic. And what were the key learnings over that, you know, that period for you? What were the things, when you look back now that laid the foundations for moving into leading Southern Cross and the work that you’ve done there.
Nick Astwick:
I think a lot of it was developing my leadership competency. You know, I was still a manager for a long, long period of time. So what I learned is sort of how to lead a culture, you know, a culture that was right for the strategy at that point in time. So that was clear. I mean, what I learned largely through my Kiwi bank days is the role of leadership is to intentionally care about the things necessary to lead a culture that’s critical for the strategy and to hire people with the beliefs and the values critical to the culture. So that right strategy, right culture, right people was fundamental to me. But I also learned that leadership, you know, there’s three big traits and I learned that through Kiwi bank and Leadership New Zealand. When I look at great leaders, they’re very intentional.
Nick Astwick:
They take action. Yeah. They don’t stand on the side. They actually sometimes have to get in unpopularly and they have to lead and they have to put themselves in vulnerable positions, but they do take action. You know, great leaders are very self aware. They understand thyself, the good and the bad of it. Yep. They understand and they play to their strengths.
Nick Astwick:
Yep. And they can understand their vulnerabilities and weaknesses and they put teams around that. And the third thing, they, they are very reflective. They learn from their mistakes. Yep. They can adjust their style in different circumstances. And I think for me, Kiwi bank leadership New Zealand, sort of, sort of ground what good leadership looks like. And actually how do you make a high growth business? How do you actually cut through and get high growth, but also too successful startup is not a great business and I learned that from sort of the great leadership of Kiwi bank and the national bank in those days too.
Paul Spain:
Now you talked about self awareness. How did you develop that?
Nick Astwick:
I think lots of people can tell you. Well, I think first you’ve got to care about it actually. Do I know thyself? I mean we all go through hundreds and hundreds of assessments, but you’ve got to, once you wise up a little bit, you think in the young age you can do everything. And you learn pretty quickly that playing the same style in a different situation turns into failure. And so you’ve gotta refine your leadership style and your impact. And so that only comes from reflection. Why did that not work? Okay, I led in this way and so I think you’ve gotta have a growth mindset, you’ve gotta confront the realities of failure and you’ve gotta really then refine and deliver that into the future. So for me, just big learning journey and good doses of reality.
Paul Spain:
And how do you help others recognise maybe they need to become a bit more self aware along the way?
Nick Astwick:
Well, it is charity with clarity. I mean, one of my swing thoughts is how do you treat everyone with respect, but be clinical in what you expect? I mean, if you genuinely care about somebody. Yeah. Then you’ll help them be better. I feel like that’s the role of a leader is always to be a coach. Yep. Is to get, I mean, a coach is trying to get from within somebody the greatest potential and you need to be able to help people understand their strengths and weaknesses and support them. But that’s gotta come from acknowledgement, not judgement.
Nick Astwick:
It’s gotta come from care, not critique.
Paul Spain:
Now, you mentioned earlier around understanding where your self worth comes from and that, you know, initially that was probably tied.
Nick Astwick:
Yes.
Paul Spain:
Very closely to your sort of success in the workplace. How did you evolve that, you know, your thinking in that area over time? Were there any particular, you know, triggers for you or things when you, you know, when you look back that helped you to develop that understanding that, you know, you should have self worth, you know, regardless of, you know, what’s happening in terms of, you know, career?
Nick Astwick:
Well, I just developed a very unhealthy attachment to work. I started with, like most young people do, you have successes in your early career and then when you get higher up the stack. Yep, there’s failures. You can’t control everything at that point in time and so then you get drawn down. So my whole self worth sort of collapsed when failures. I am not great. I got quite vulnerable, sort of, in a sense that. And so I actually, with a coach, had to say, why am I feeling like that? And he pointed out that I had an unhealthy attachment to work.
Nick Astwick:
And so pretty much from that moment on I separated my two worlds. And in my role as CEO, I often say, you know, the business has got this challenge and the business has got this success. Nothing to do with me. And so, you know, you’ve actually got to learn to put big distance between that. But if you’ve got a healthy attachment to work, you can really critique it. You can, you know, and I think one of the roles of the CEO is to define reality and give hope. You’ve got to be able to hold the truth, what is actually going on, because everyone in your organisation sees it. If the CEO doesn’t see it, it’s optimistic or pessimistic.
Nick Astwick:
And so having a healthy attachment allows me to define the reality of what’s going on and then it Allows me to objectively go, you know, give hope as what’s the good strategy, what are the good plans, what are the good decisions? And to give hope in the form of taking good action. And so I had to learn the hard way around a healthy attachment. But I see that in a lot of young people today. It’s not that they are highly iq, you know, they’re very intelligent, they’re very intentional, but they’ve got an unhealthy attachment that their whole self worth is attached to their work worth. And that does unravel. And so I try and help them sort of separate those two worlds.
Paul Spain:
Yeah, fantastic. Can you share a little bit about what the circumstance was that, you know, that brought you that point where you got a coach and you know, you re looked at things well, it’s just
Nick Astwick:
a sort of a, sort of a culmination of things that don’t turn out well, whether the system changes that do that or the market or there’s people that you’ve made judgment calls on that don’t turn out. So you go, oh my God, you know, that they are not all successful. And what I probably, you know, that’s where the learnings are and the tough moments, I can tell you. Yeah. And so there was a lot of learning there, but there was actually, you know, it was a culmination of many, many things over time.
Paul Spain:
And so that was obviously quite a key, you know, a key learning from, you know, from those tough moments. Were there any other kind of key learnings that came out at that time, you know, where you got a coach and so on, you know, going through these things? As you’ve said, there’s lots of learnings in there. What else could you share?
Nick Astwick:
Well, I think again, it was really about what leader are you going to be. It’s like a lot of people come in, I want to be the CEO. And my first question is, well, why do you want to be a CEO? And secondly is what CEO are you going to be? And thirdly, what organization are you going to be? The best CEO you can possibly be. And then they haven’t even thought about those sorts of things. And so I think my leadership career had taught me be intentional, be self aware. Yeah. And be highly reflective. And I knew that I would only be a great CEO in a certain brand or a certain culture or with a certain strategy.
Nick Astwick:
I mean, I can pay politics like everyone else, but I’m not at my best. Yep. And so that was a little bit of the story of Southern Cross, really was, you know, I Went for a CEO gig. Yeah. And I thought, oh, they’re gonna look at my weaknesses and I’ll.
Paul Spain:
I’ll.
Nick Astwick:
In my interview, I’ll manage my weaknesses and say all these. Right. Technical things. Yep. But I blew it. Yep. You know, I. I tried to be the person I thought that they were seeking, and they could see straight through that.
Paul Spain:
Yeah, yeah.
Nick Astwick:
And so then again, failure learned from that. And so then when I had the opportunity to the CEO, in fact, I went to INSEAD and did the advanced management program in Fontainebleau there. And a large part of it was thinking about the leader, you know, you should be, you know, about sort of, what potential have you got and how can you realize that? And so I came back from Fontainebleau with a sense that I just don’t want to be a CEO for the sake of being a CEO title. What I want to do is lead an organization that’s got this type of impact and meaning, and I think I’ll be the best leader in this type of culture. And so when I got to Southern Cross and I saw the opportunity of Southern Cross, I said, if you want somebody else, fantastic. Yeah, but this is the leader you’re going to get. And I could do it with humility and I could do it with clarity, but it was quite empowering not to again say, I must, you know, I must try and be the CEO there. I could be authentic and say, this is the CEO you’re going to get.
Nick Astwick:
I think it’s right for the time here. And as history would show, they managed to give me the job, which was wonderful. And this is, as I say, to have the national bank, to have Kiwi bank, and to have Southern Cross, I feel very blessed.
Paul Spain:
Oh, fantastic. And so when you went into Southern Cross, that was what, 2017?
Nick Astwick:
Yes.
Paul Spain:
Yeah. And so what were those things that made you, you know, feel that this was a really good alignment for you and that, you know, this was gonna be. This was gonna be good for everybody?
Nick Astwick:
Well, I think, you know, I grew up with Southern Cross. My mum and dad didn’t have a lot of money, but one thing they did care was the health and our education. And so Southern Cross was in my life, you know, not that I needed it. You know, no one, you know, needs health insurance, you know, when you’re young, really. But what it taught me is it was a brand that was really meaningful at that point in time. So that was born in 1961, Southern Cross, you know, I was born in 1973, so it was still, you know, early part of that, of course, I surrendered it when I was in my 20s and bulletproof. Yeah. But I came back to, you know, remember, health is actually quite meaningful and has a huge resonance.
Nick Astwick:
And so a large amount of New Zealanders say, actually I want to have some sort of control about access to health when I need it, I care deeply about it. It’s a little bit like private education and there’s more and more of your normal Kiwis caring about that. And so for me, the first thing was it was a brand of significance and meaning I’d just come out of Kiwibank and National Bank. So it was a brand of significance and meaning I knew nothing about health at that time, but I knew that it was powerful and it had a huge resonance. You know, mortgages and health, you know, there was a difference there. But I also thought it was quite a heritage brand. It needed a dose of contemporisation and energy. And if it was gonna be around for another 60 years, it had to really confront its brand, its proposition, and how it was going to be relevant for New Zealanders.
Nick Astwick:
And I felt like I could help with that. And so, you know, I’m coming up sort of just over nine years, this is the best job I’ve had and I have probably really learned about the health sector, but the fusion between financial services and health has been wonderful. But this is a meaningful brand for New Zealanders. I mean, we do. We fund 3.8 million health events every year. You know, a lot of people can complain to me about the price of it, but we exist to get our members the care they need and we do it pretty well, I think over 3.8 million and we’ve probably earned 60% of the market share and 70% of the health funding in the private market. We’ve earned that, I think, because we run a good business and we deeply care about our members health outcomes. And I think for me, I feel at home in brands that really are good for New Zealand, are very customer and member centric.
Nick Astwick:
Yeah. And the culture deeply cares. And I think that’s what we have at Southern Cross, I’m very proud to say.
Paul Spain:
Now, explain how Southern Cross operates, because it’s not a business in the usual sense, it’s not a company, you’re a society. So what does that mean in practice, in terms of how you need to operate?
Nick Astwick:
The Southern Cross brand in New Zealand has two big business groups. First, it’s got what I would call the Health Related Insurance group, which is the Health, Life, Pet and Travel. Yep. Which I look I’m the CEO of the health insurance business and a director on those other product lines. But that is our financial services group, which I’m part of. And then we’ve got the healthcare delivery, that is your hospitals, all your JVs, all the white coats and delivering your surgery. Thank goodness I’m not involved in any of that. Yeah.
Nick Astwick:
And so you’ve got two, what we call funder and providers. We’re attached by a brand there, but they’re very, very different businesses. So the health insurance is actually what’s called a friendly society. There’s not many of us around, but what it largely means is it’s a profit conscious but not profit driven. It sits there. Yep. Not as a company, but as a friendly society. It’s gotta operate in the interests of the collective membership and it’s there to provision health, to be there for health and sickness, really.
Nick Astwick:
And so it operates as a company in every form of it. It’s just under our old legal structure, which means it doesn’t have shareholders per se, it gives a tax, we don’t have to pay tax. But that largely means that we can only do a tight scope of work. We can only look after your fund, your health and life orientated stuff. So it’s a very tight scope of business. But that’s a very old status, the friendly society status. But it’s like a mutual. I mean the best way I describe it is like a mutual.
Nick Astwick:
We’re here for the mutual benefit of the membership. Yeah.
Paul Spain:
Yep. So there’s not profits that are needing to be, you know, funded out to external shareholders. Everything really goes back into.
Nick Astwick:
That’s right. I mean, we need profits to have the capital to sustain ourselves. But we’re not driven by generating a profit, we’re driven by getting our members the care they need to get. Well.
Paul Spain:
Now, what did you find when you came in to the role?
Nick Astwick:
Well, I think it had good bones. I mean, a company that’s been around for, you know, 50 years already has got to have good bones. It had good bones, it had wonderful people, had a very causal based culture. But I think it lost its energy in its way. Yeah. And so what I could help with, I think was, I guess, bringing back a bit of ambition. You know, it hadn’t grown membership for 20 odd years. And so I saw I could bring from my Kiwi bank and national bank days, I felt like I could help them get this sort of growth mojo back, build a brand that was a little bit differentiated.
Nick Astwick:
I mean, there’s many organisations that are for good that go by the wayside. No one cares about your friendly society for goods legal structure at all. It cares about the quality of your experiences and products. And so as a result of a friendly society, we could be very customer driven. I learnt that from the National Bank, I learnt that from Kiwi Bank. And so that sense of making sure that we’ve got relevant proposition for the future and so a lot of energy has gone into making sure that that’s the case. And so I think just really modernising and contemporising, I guess what was a very heritage business has really been my role as CEO and to set it up for the next phase.
Paul Spain:
It’s been what? Nine, nine years?
Nick Astwick:
Just over nine years now.
Paul Spain:
Just over nine years. You know, if you’re looking in at say the culture side of the business, what are you most proud of in terms of what’s been achieved over that period?
Nick Astwick:
Oh, well, I’m most proud really that we have kept a customer centricity to the organisation. I feel like we’re a lot more modern organization than we were before. I feel like we’ve got energy and fight. Yep. And competitive nature to it. I do feel like we’ve got a plan and a strategy that will continue to make us more relevant into the future. But I’m really proud of, I guess, the culture of the organization. You know, it is a, it is a customer centric, caring can do cause based organisation and I think we probably just, you know, I do believe Southern Cross is a meaningful organisation in the New Zealand context.
Nick Astwick:
Health is very meaningful and I think, you know, I do feel a lot more comfortable that we can be around for 20 or 30 years. That that doesn’t mean to say that we don’t have to fundamentally still change and evolve. That goes without saying. But I do feel like we’re a lot more contemporary organisation.
Paul Spain:
What would you say you had to practically do in terms of stirring change and bringing change from that culture perspective and ensuring that everyone had that customer centric mindset and focus?
Nick Astwick:
Well, I don’t think our compete to win strategy was very clear. So I think the first thing, you know, define reality and give hope. We had to confront that just because we’re good, you know, that guarantees nothing. And so I think we had to confront our reality that our risk is irrelevance. Unless we’re relevant to, you know, close to a million members, I think we’ve got about 950,000 members. Unless we’re relevant to them in five to 10 years time, we’re a goner. And So I think confronting that reality that just because we are for good and our intention is pure, that means nothing. And so we articulated a very clear modernisation and contemporization strategy.
Nick Astwick:
And then we were very intentional around the culture that we needed. We were slow and methodical and so we became a scaled agile business. The leadership was focused on delivering the strategy, not running their businesses. We brought in some fresh talent and energy into the business but we were very intentional around that change. And so, you know, again, I think a lot of the systems were modernised. I think this is the thing, it was underinvested, I felt for a long, long time. And so we’ve progressively invested in its technology and I do think the moments of truth that really matter. You know, anytime I go out there with Southern Cross, I say you’re a Southern Cross member, what do you like about us? And they say at claim time, which is the moment of truth.
Nick Astwick:
You make it so easy. And for me, as a friendly society, no one cares about that. But what we care about is our members get what they deserve, what they are paying for in their policy each time not making it hard to give a profit to a shareholder. And that’s the Southern Cross difference is funding your healthcare when you need it. And so I feel very comfortable in an organization where actually the shareholder and the customer’s interest are fundamentally aligned.
Paul Spain:
And what did that modernization journey look like?
Nick Astwick:
A significant rebuild. I mean I think if all our systems now and all our providers to give instant decisioning your claim time. We’re trying to get rid of claims, you know, in an insurer. Yeah. We’re trying to fund all your, what you’re entitled to at the point of sale. So there was a massive amount of systems re engineering to get instant decisioning at the point of sale. All our mobile app and Internet was completely and utterly rebuilt. You know, I come from an Internet banking world.
Nick Astwick:
Yep. And so that’s why your mobile phone, you know, you know we feel like that’s your, my Southern Cross and your mobile phone. So we were, were very intentional around making sure that 24, 7 you could engage with Southern Cross. All our core infrastructure had to be remodernised. You know, if you think about we do 17,000 claim lines a day. You know, we largely do that instantly. Yep. Through you know, rules based engines and systems.
Nick Astwick:
And so that has to be 100% accurate, it has to be reliable, it has to be delivered every single day. And you know more than anything else, how technology becomes old pretty, pretty quickly. So there was a lot of modernisation of systems. Our whole information security posture and our resilience posture needed to be invested in. So again, it’s a lot of that, it’s like the foundation stuff you don’t see in your house. But we’ve had to strengthen a lot of that.
Paul Spain:
Yeah. So doing that has then allowed you, you know, I guess part of the same journey. But modernizing the core foundations has allowed you to have an app where people can do those claims quickly or with some health providers, GPS and so on, where they can manage that. Right.
Nick Astwick:
You don’t even have to, don’t even have to get involved, it’s just doing the core. Well, I’m a big believer in doing the basics exceptionally well and so we’re really focused on that.
Paul Spain:
And so what have been the results of that in terms of, you know, if you sort of, you know, look back to 2017 versus today, how do you measure that success?
Nick Astwick:
Well, I mean membership growth is quite a dramatic up, you know, I think it was about 700,000 and it got as high as 960,000. It’s come back in the last couple of years because. Cause obviously we’ve had a massive post Covid demand. So I think you can see that in the customer growth. You can see that in some of the net promoter score of our members, you can see that in some of the tenure, you can see that in some of the transactional volumes that go through. I mean I think the. So there’s some really good traits there, particularly our brand relevance in New Zealand. So I think we measure all those sorts of things.
Nick Astwick:
I think the challenge that we’ve still got is the affordability of our products and that is the, you know, to be relevant, you also need to be affordable. And so in our model, the more you use your pay, I mean for every dollar of premium, 90 cents pretty much in our model through the long term, goes back to pay your healthcare, only 10 cents in the dollar goes to our operating costs and that’s gonna get down to 6 or 7 cents. So pretty much where a money go round, your premium goes to your claims. And so fundamentally we have to make sure that over time the private system is actually sustainable. It does the right care in the right setting at the right time to make sure that it is sustainable. Because, you know, it’s not. You know, we contract with our partners, our healthcare partners. The price, your price is going up by inflation, but our members are using more and more services and so that’s a wonderful thing.
Nick Astwick:
Yep. But our members have to pay for It So we do have to make sure that the private health system actually does the right care at the right setting at the right time and does that efficiently as well as effectively.
Paul Spain:
What’s driving your, you know, your members, you know, using more health services, what are the drivers there, the spend is going up.
Nick Astwick:
Well, health insurance is slightly different. You know, no one says, fantastic, my house burnt down, I got to use my general insurance. And my, you know, in health insurance people join us for peace of mind, but they stay with us for value. And so there’s almost this sort of sense that I’ve got Southern Cross, I need to use it to get value. And so we’ve got 50% of our members that use it all the time in a sense, and 50% members don’t need to use it in any one year. Now that 50% changes. But there is a currency and a cadence to health insurance. And over time, you know, we exist to give you the care you need when you need it.
Nick Astwick:
That’s the reason for us existing. And so we do that 3.6 million times a year the next five or ten years is how we’re relevant to low claimers. I mean, that’s the thing in today’s world, you’ve got to be highly relevant to your low claimers. And so that’s a large amount of our work around our proposition.
Paul Spain:
And if you sort of stand back and look at how you operate versus, you know, for profit insurance provider, what would you say the big difference is? There’s obviously a difference in terms of how much of the funds that, you know, people are, you know, paying in their premiums, you know, gets used back for their healthcare. Right?
Nick Astwick:
Yeah, that’s exactly right. I mean, I think, I mean, I believe in having a competitive market. I think if you’ve got competition in your market is really, really healthy. And so we’ve got a number of competition. Some of them are like us, some of them are for profit. I don’t really, I’m not questioning motivations around there. I mean, we live and die on our value proposition. That’s what matters.
Nick Astwick:
So I think healthy competition actually gets you to be better. What I’m trying to do at Southern Cross, you know, I’m a deep believer that loyalty really matters, your quality of your experience really matters. And so we’ll make different decisions than others that may be product centric or operationally excellent centric, you know, and so really we’re trying to compete to be different. And so our difference largely manifests, I think, in our culture, like claiming for example, we just want to make that entitle your benefits. Yep. That’s our difference, is to make sure that we’re operating in your best interest, not the shareholder’s best interest every day of the week.
Paul Spain:
So what’s next for Nick astwick?
Nick Astwick:
Well, yes, September 30th. Yeah, that’ll be nine and three quarter years. As I say, best job I’ve ever had. Look, I’m just trying to been very spoiled with sort of National Bank, Kiwibank and Southern Cross. I’m looking to move more into a portfolio career to sort of get involved with high growth businesses that have got New Zealand Inc. At their core that really want to make a dent on the world stage. Yep. Or the New Zealand stage.
Nick Astwick:
And so I’m just looking for a little bit more variety. You know, I think being well conditioned as an executive to turn out, you know, seven o’ clock every day and you know, work. And so it’s just really trying to have more variety I think. And so there’ll be some professional governance roles that I’m really seeking at the moment and then sweat equity and some equity into high growth New Zealand businesses because that’s what I believe. I’m a big believer in the prosperity of New Zealand and I’m a big believer in business to try and give that, you know, we need more income as a country and we do need it to be more equally shared. That’s probably those businesses I just want to get involved in.
Paul Spain:
How big do you think the opportunity is for New Zealand moving forward and you know, how much of that opportunity is in sort of the high tech business world?
Nick Astwick:
Well, you can probably answer that better than I, but we’re building capital markets, we’re building an industrial mindset. If you look at halters and, and if you look at the rocket labs, the world has never been closer. And so if you’ve got the mindset that this generation does have, it can reach the world never. And when I grew up you couldn’t reach 7 billion people, but now digitally you can. And so I think we’re maturing, we’re finding some capital, we’re building a mindset that can scale. We can reach the world like we’ve never have before. And we’re turning ideas that we’ve always been very good at into large scale businesses. I mean we’re building billion dollar businesses now rather than five to $10 million in selling it now that largely has because of technology.
Nick Astwick:
Technology and partnership enables you to scale across the world. And so I think we’re just at the start of that. I mean, our country, you know, our GDP is still relatively low and we’re only going to get there by building industry and not selling it early, is actually scaling business and having those benefits brought back to New Zealand. Whether that’s employees, higher paid jobs, those sorts of things, that is critical. But technology landscape is the critical. Not just technology businesses, but leveraging technology to reach the world and make a good return. I want to be part of that journey.
Paul Spain:
Yeah, that’s great. If you were to leave listeners with some tips, whether they’re nichisms or, you know, things from, you know that you’ve learned and things that you live by, what would those things be?
Nick Astwick:
Be ambitious. Think big. I mean, I think that is quite critical. I mean, choose to lead. I would say be very intentional in that. Be a champion team. Not just a team of champions. I think that’s what critical.
Nick Astwick:
I mean, that’s what New Zealand. I mean we are as a country, we value relationships, we do things, you know, we’ve got a team orientation. So I would say, as I say, build a culture, go for it, think big. Yep. And don’t sell your short. Don’t sell yourself short.
Paul Spain:
Fantastic. Anything else you’d like to add, Nick?
Nick Astwick:
No, thanks, Paul, that was fantastic. Thanks for your time.
Paul Spain:
That’s great. Thank you.
Nick Astwick:
Thank you.
Paul Spain:
Cheers.
Nick Astwick:
Great.
Paul Spain:
Well, I trust you enjoyed hearing from Nick Astwick. The New Zealand Business Podcast is brought to you by One New Zealand and Gorilla Technology. Be sure to listen in to our other episodes featuring many of New Zealand’s most successful leaders, including founders such as Sir Peter Beck of Rocket Lab, Brooke Roberts of Sharesies, Sir Rod Drury of Xero Cecilia and James Robinson of My Foodbag, Sir Michael Hill and many more. And if you benefited from this episode, be sure to share it with a friend. The New Zealand Business podcast brought to you by Gorilla Technology, your strategic and proactive IT partner.
