FROM CHRISTCHURCH BOY TO LEADER

Much like his rise within the National Party, Christopher Luxon took just over a year to reach the top at Air New Zealand (Air NZ).

But the newly-minted Opposition leader has received both praise and criticism for his leadership at the national carrier.

Luxon, 51, spent seven years as chief executive of Air NZ, taking over the reins from Rob Fyfe at the end of 2012.

Born in Christchurch in 1970, Luxon’s mother was a psychotherapist and his father was a sales executive for Johnson & Johnson. He and his family moved to Auckland when he was seven but at age 15 Luxon returned to Christchurch where he studied at Canterbury University, graduating with a masters in commerce majoring in business administration.

He was later recruited into the management trainee programme Unilever, one of the world’s largest multinational consumer packaged goods firms. He spent the next 18 years working for Unilever in New Zealand and around the globe.

He finished his time with the company based in Toronto as president and chief executive of Unilever Canada.

In 2011, Luxon, having just turned 40, returned to New Zealand to the role of group general manager international airline at Air NZ. The following year he was appointed chief executive.

Under his leadership Air NZ signed numerous codeshare agreements and alliance deals, and opened a bunch of new and exciting international routes.

As profits soared to record levels, helped by a booming tourism industry, Air NZ placed orders for the latest and greatest planes, upgraded Koru lounges and was named Australia’s most trusted brand several years in a row.

The success of the company was reflected in Luxon’s whopping pay packet. In 2018, he was the highest paid chief executive of all listed companies, earning more than $4 million a year. But it wasn’t all clear skies, with Luxon making the unpopular decision in 2014 to axe seven economically unsustainable regional routes. It also later stopped flying to Kapiti.

Then there were the public relations disasters of the RollsRoyce engine issues and aircraft maintenance engineers, aircraft logistics industrial action which threatened to ruin a Christmas.

Towards the end of his time at the airline Luxon worked alongside former National Party leader and former Prime Minister Sir John Key when, in 2017, Key was named an Air NZ director before resigning in 2019.

In 2018 Luxon was named chair of a newly-formed Prime Minister’s Business Advisory Council to advise Jacinda Ardern on how to supercharge the New Zealand economy. But it was short-lived with Luxon resigning from Air NZ in September 2019, just months before the pandemic decimated the aviation industry.

Former Air NZ executive and now chief executive of MediaWorks Cam Wallace, who worked closely with Luxon for seven years, said he was an exceptionally hard and dedicated worker. ‘‘He’s got massive commitment to the task.

’’He’s quite attuned to the values of modern New Zealand.’’

He described Luxon as an ‘‘inspirational leader’’.

Aviation consultant Irene King said Luxon had a long pedigree of global leadership.

‘‘That’s got to be a tick in the sense he’s very familiar working on the international stage.’’

Luxon beat some ‘‘stellar candidates’’ in being named Air NZ chief executive, demonstrating that Fyfe and Air NZ’s board of directors at the time clearly rated him very highly, she said.

Fyfe’s extroverted leadership style was very different to Luxon’s more conservative approach.

She said Luxon showed ‘‘an enormous amount of intellectual capability’’ and was the epitome of what a chief executive should be.

There was often disparaging commentary about his leadership style which she felt was not warranted.

Luxon inherited an airline with a strong balance sheet and ‘‘a dream team’’ of executives around him, and he made the most of it, she said.

He also had a period of consistent growth with no ‘‘nasty black swan events’’ to deal with.

But even at the best of times Air New Zealand was ‘‘a bloody tough business to run’’, she said.

E tu¯ head of aviation Savage said Luxon had a clear vision for Air NZ and capitalised on the world-wide boom in aviation to expand and reach record profits. He was big part of setting up high performance engagement at the airline with the staff’s unions.

‘‘He very rarely attended the monthly leadership meetings between union and company and was not close to the problems the unions and company were trying to sort out ... He was not a CEO who spent a lot of time with ordinary workers.’’

Luxon’s approach to high performance was ‘‘all too often style over substance and was consistently under-resourced’’.

Whether he would be successful as National leader would depend on how connected he was with the concerns of everyday people, he said.

Luxon showed ‘‘an enormous amount of intellectual capability’’ .

Aviation consultant Irene King

‘‘He was not a CEO who spent a lot of time with ordinary workers.’’

E tu¯ head of aviation Savage