Jewel Citizen

Having spent nearly half her life in international roles Mary Quin is heading home with plenty of ideas up her sleeve

Palmerston North born, Mary Quin has become hot property since taking on the inaugural CEO of Callaghan Innovation last month. Having travelled to nearly one third of the countries in the world Mary is a witness of innovation at its best. Yet she has never supposed herself ‘above’ taking lodge in oil field camps or sleeping on classroom floors in remote Arctic villages.
The saying is true… you can take the girl out of New Zealand but you can’t take the New Zealand out of the girl.
The seventh of nine children, Mary’s most beloved childhood memories were of summer holidays at the family bach at Waitarere Beach. Her father, a police detective turned businessman and mother (a fulltime homemaker) both encouraged their children to pursue individual interests and goals whether that was joining the family business or going on to university. 
Mary is a woman of many accomplishments. In 1976 she joined the PhD program in Materials Science and Engineering at Northwestern University in Chicago. Although she did not expect to remain in the USA after graduating, Mary was offered a position developing new alloys and products for Raychem, a telecommunications company in the San Francisco Bay Area. With the exception of a year in France with Raychem, the USA has been her home ever since. Mary eventually obtained American citizenship after the USA changed its policy to allow dual citizenship and from 1986 -1988 she took two years out from her career to obtain her MBA at Harvard Business School. Since then Mary’s expertise have been shared across start-up companies to global Fortune 500 companies like Kodak and Xero.
“I have broad experience of how innovation is nurtured and commercialized in very small and very large organizations.”
This is clearly a woman who lives in the moment and now with her most recent appointment the sky truly is the limit for this high-flying innovator.

Congratulations on your recent appointment. What will your main objectives be as CEO of Callaghan Innovation?
The opportunity to join Callaghan Innovation as its first CEO was completely unexpected. I was initially contacted by the executive recruiter. Once I had an opportunity to meet the Callaghan Innovation board and understand the mission and potential of this newly created organization I realized it was a very exciting and challenging role which would utilize every aspect of my career to date – research, engineering, product development, corporate leadership, strategy, bidding and delivering on services contracts, even my experience as an entrepreneur running a retail store. I felt it was a unique opportunity to have a positive impact on future economic outcomes for New Zealand and I couldn’t wait to get started.
I joined Callaghan Innovation on May 3 and was pleased that a lot of excellent work has already been done to develop and implement a business plan. My initial objectives will be to meet key people inside and outside the agency, listen to diverse points of view, and get up to speed on immediate issues and opportunities. Our mission is to accelerate the commercialization of innovation in New Zealand so my top priority will be to focus and align Callaghan Innovation on achieving that mission. However, creating greater value from advanced manufacturing and services is really a national cause that involves all New Zealanders; not just the employees of Callaghan Innovation. The owners and managers of businesses, financial investors, Maori owned corporations, government departments, research institutions, universities, even high school students making a decision whether to go on to university or not, are all contributing to the innovation wealth and potential of the country. My vision is that “Callaghan Innovation” represents not just an organization, but a national movement towards greater prosperity and quality of life for all New Zealanders, living here or abroad.

You have been in many influential senior roles. What has been your most fulfilling to date?
Each role has been fulfilling in different ways. A particularly fulfilling aspect of being President of NANA Management Services (NMS) was achieving the company’s dual financial and social missions. NMS is half-owned by the Inupiat people of Northwest Alaska so the company not only had to grow and generate a profit like any business but also create employment and career advancement opportunities for its Inupiat shareholders, many of whom still live traditional subsistence lifestyles in remote villages above the Arctic Circle. I was able to introduce initiatives and programs that allowed NMS to hire nearly 400 shareholders. One program, created by NMS’ Security Division, involved hiring shareholders to monitor sea mammal populations during off-shore drilling by oil companies. This program had an environmental benefit as well.

You are known to many as an “inspirational speaker”. What are the main things people ask you to speak about? What is your personal favourite topic to speak about?
Most often I am asked to speak about being taken hostage in Yemen, along with 15 other tourists, in December of 1998. I also wrote a book about the kidnapping and my investigation into who took us hostage and why. In recent years I have preferred not to speak on that topic, or only incidentally, just because it happened fifteen years ago so is “ancient history” for me now. I prefer to address current business topics and especially social issues related to business.
Recent topics I’ve enjoyed speaking about are the financial challenges of providing healthcare insurance for low wage employees and the consequences of President Obama’s Affordable Care Act for the services industries; creating a safety culture and reducing industrial accidents, especially in an organization where many employees speak little or no English; or the role of business in creating jobs and career advancement for indigenous people. My new favorite topic to speak about is, of course, innovation!
And, no, I am rarely nervous about speaking in public. I was on my high school debating team at St Joseph’s in Palmerston North and was lead speaker for the University of Canterbury Debating Team so I learned to be comfortable speaking to an audience long before I began my business career.

What are some significant life lessons that you have learnt throughout your corporate career?
Two life lessons come to mind: One is that I don’t have to know the right answer or come up with the right solution; I just need to listen to the people around me because collectively we can usually figure it out. Even when I do have a good idea it’s usually even better after other people get involved and develop the idea further.
The second is that most problems aren’t as bad as you think they are at the time. With the benefit of hindsight you can usually see that there were more options open to you, or the consequences were less devastating, than it seemed at the time. I try to remind myself of that when faced with a difficult situation now – I try to imagine it’s five years into the future and ask myself if it will it still be a big deal then? Time provides a wonderful sense of perspective.

Do you believe gender equality is still a problem in New Zealand or the USA? If so, how are you contributing to “putting women on the map”?
According to a recent newspaper article the pay gap between women and men in New Zealand is actually getting worse so, yes, there is clearly persistent gender inequality. In both countries women remain seriously under-represented in the most senior levels of management and on corporate boards. New Zealand has certainly made much more progress than the USA with respect to women’s political leadership. Americans are often surprised when I point out that New Zealand has already had two female Prime Ministers while the USA has yet to elect its first female President.
That said, I think there is very little belief now in either country, by men or women, that women are somehow less competent than men as corporate or political leaders. The inequalities are more systemic and cultural than based on real beliefs about women being innately less capable of management and leadership roles than men. That’s a huge change from when I started my career.
I have been actively involved in women’s equality on a global basis since attending the United Nations NGO Forum on Women in Beijing. That led to a board position, and eventually becoming Chair of the Board of CEDPA, an international organization focused on women’s rights and health. I also launched the One Hundred Heroines Project, as part of the 150^th anniversary celebration in New York of the first women’s rights convention in the USA. We identified and gave grants to 100 women from around the world who were taking personal risks to achieve equality for women in their countries. At a local level I have for many years provided a scholarship to my former high school for a female student who is going on to university to study science, engineering or business.

If you could offer one piece of advice to other businesswomen, what would it be?
My advice would be to take risks and grab hold of new opportunities whenever they arise. Never let doubts about your own capabilities or experience hold you back from accepting a new assignment, launching a new business idea, or taking the lead to solve a problem. You are more likely to regret the things you didn’t do in life than the things you did.
 
Who is Mary Quin:
Dr Mary Quin is the inaugural Chief Executive of Callaghan Innovation. She returned to New Zealand to take up the role in May, after 20 years working overseas in senior executive roles in NASDAQ-listed companies such as Eastman Kodak Company and Xerox, where she was VP of Strategy and Business Development for Xerox’ US$5.5 billion Production Systems Group. Her most recent role was as President of the 2,800-person US support services company, NANA Management Services LLC in Alaska.
Dr Quin graduated from the University of Canterbury with a Bachelor of Science (Honours) with First Class Honours in Physics.  She completed a PhD in Materials Science and Engineering at Northwestern University in Illinois and after working in research and development for engineering company Raychem for several years, attended Harvard Business School, where she graduated as a Baker Scholar.
After surviving a terrorist kidnapping incident in Yemen in 1998, Mary met her partner Ray Kaufman and moved with him to Alaska in 2001. She researched and published a best-selling book about the kidnapping then launched an organic products retail company, Tuliqi LLC, before joining NMS as its President.
 
What, in your opinion, are the top five qualities of a successful employee:
The top five qualities I look for and value in an employee are:

1. Dependability – show up, when and where you are needed, and deliver on your commitments
2. Honesty – demonstrate high ethical standards and expect the same of your colleagues
3. Creativity – don’t settle for the status quo, constantly offer up new ideas and better solutions
4. Teamwork – focus on the shared mission and helping the whole team be successful
5. Initiative – if you see a problem or opportunity, take action; never say “that’s not my job”

 
Best travel tip
If you can’t carry it yourself, don’t take it. In general, take half what you think you will need but be sure to have high quality clothing and gear for cold climates. My second travel tip is to not sweat the small stuff when things go wrong. It’s usually the unexpected parts of travel that lead to the most interesting experiences. As long as you come back alive, it’s all good.

There’s no place like home
“I still love to swim in the surf and bodysurf when back in New Zealand. Needless to say there was no opportunity to do that living in places like Chicago, upstate New York, and Anchorage. When visiting New Zealand I also enjoy tramping (I did the Milford track a couple of years ago) and visiting vineyards to taste and purchase New Zealand’s incredible wines.”