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The North Harbour club was established on 18 May, 1995.

Originally, a group of North Shore business people met and established a constitution with the objectives below:

To promote the North Harbour region.
For business establishments of the region to meet and network for the good of the region.
To form a Charitable Trust to raise funds and present scholarships to the youth of the North Harbour region.

To qualify for the AIMES Awards, recipients must have shown outstanding ability or potential in the areas of the arts, information technology, music, education, sport.

Counting on Excellence

Matthew Bellingham

Matthew Bellingham is the Vice President of the North Harbour Club. Like most people in the Club, he first became involved through the late Ross Finlayson. “Ross decided I would be a good person to be in the North Harbour Club,” Matthew recalls. “I remember meeting with him and indicating I wanted to join. He said ‘right boy, this is what you do’. From there Ross took me under his wing.”

Matthew, CEO and Business Improvement Director of accounting firm Hayes Knight, says it’s one of those organisations where the people that put more into it, will get a whole lot more back. After joining the club, Matthew says the next step was getting Hayes Knight involved with sponsoring the AIMES Emerging Talents Awards. “Ross was the first inspiration and once I got into the Club and understood what it was all about I found that its value set sits with my value set. The rewards from being involved in sponsoring the development of youth and some of the amazing things these kids achieve – it just makes your heart glow. I absolutely love it.”
While Matthew is now a devoted North Shore resident of 10 years, his early days were spent in West Auckland. “We had a lifestyle block out the back of Massey, 10 acres complete with cows, sheep, my sister’s horse and my string of motorbikes. It was a great way to grow up. I guess that’s been a deciding factor in moving to where I am now in Coatesville. I love that lifestyle.”
It’s a lifestyle he shares with his wife Tarryn and his two young daughters, Sophie and Eva. “My next appointment is to go and pick up our latest animal for the property - a miniature pony for the kids, named Smokey.” Combined with Tarryn’s horse Ferrari and the two dogs, Smokey makes up the total “livestock”

on their property. “Let’s just say it doesn’t exactly provide a financial return!” Even with a demanding role as CEO of Hayes Knight, Matthew considers himself lucky to have flexible hours and the weekends to devote to his girls. “I’m really happy I’ve been able to balance a hectic professional career with spending quite a lot of time with my kids. I’m at the point now where they are young and they need quite a bit of input from their Dad. I’m able to do that, so that’s a big thing for me at the moment.”
Matthew’s interest in numbers began early on. “I was always better with numbers than I was with the arts – in fact, if you’ve even seen any of my art from back in school, you’d understand why I became an accountant!” Following University, Matthew had his first career break in 1992, with the very small Takapuna accounting firm Colson White, now known as Hayes Knight. He was appointed partner in 1997 at the age of 26, and is now a 20-year veteran and the CEO of the company.
Matthew relishes his role with Hayes Knight and can genuinely say he loves his job. “It’s a really interesting career. There are a number of different areas you can go into, and pretty early on I managed to get through the ‘counting the beans’ phase and get to the advising stage. So, from my late 20s, I have been in a position where I am able to pull together strategic and business plans and be heavily involved in the direction of businesses, investment and financing decisions, and acquisitions and mergers. It is actually really exciting. It’s challenging, it requires a lot of focus, and it requires a huge amount of patience and a lot of hours. But when you pull off a deal, there’s nothing better – it’s a massive adrenalin rush.”
Excellence is a word that follows Matthew through every element of his life. “Hayes Knight is all about excellence. That’s one of the other great fits with the North Harbour Club. In fact, our business strategic plan is ‘Good to Great’, based on the Jim Collins book. It’s all around excellence in your chosen field, being the best you can be, and we try to deliver that right across the board, for our clients, our team and the community – all the stakeholders. As long as we are striving for excellence, I know we will get it right. And of course there’s a bit of fun thrown in there as well.”
Matthew’s professional development over the past 20 years is an aspect of his life that he is incredibly proud of, although he considers his efforts still a ‘work in progress’. “I am really proud of being involved in taking the business from only half a dozen people back in 1991, to 120 staff now, and being one of the largest accounting firms in Auckland. That whole 20-year journey has been incredibly fulfilling for me personally. It’s my job now to lead the organisation through the next round of change. I’m proud of where we have got to, but I’m excited about where we can take the business.”
The ability to get along with people is an asset that Matthew says has formed the basis of his successful career. “I actually really enjoy people, and I think when that’s genuine, people respond back to you. So if you get that bit right – and I’ve also got the ability to interpret the numbers and bring their meaning into everyday language – then I think that has probably been the catalyst for my career.”
Outside his CEO role, Matthew has a raft of other responsibilities and interests. In addition to his role at the North Harbour Club, Matthew is the Chairman of Judges for the Auckland North Business Excellence Awards, a trustee of North Harbour Stadium and an advisor on several boards. His most recent appointments are to the judging panel of the Auckland wide Best of the Best Business Excellence Awards, and as Chairman of the National Public Practice Advisory Board, advising the New Zealand Institute of Chartered Accountants.
Matthew admits that ‘free’ time is a rare commodity in his world. He counts fishing and diving as some of his favourite pastimes, although he concedes he doesn’t get out on the water as much as he’d like to. When he does get away, one of his favourite spots is the Coromandel, and being a ‘mad, keen diver’ Matthew says there are some pretty good spots to explore. For a ‘boys’ trip’ he recommends Great Barrier. “I’ve travelled extensively around the world, and Great Barrier would still be one of my favourite spots.”
And if Matthew needs a career change, he has one he’d like to try waiting in the wings – literally. “I was always going to be a pilot. I’m not quite sure why I never did it, and I still hold dreams of it one day. It’s something I’d like to pursue in the next 5-10 years.”

John Bishop

Founding Trustee hugely proud of club achievements

It has been a year of change and new opportunities for many, and it is in that spirit that after years of faithful service to our community, John Bishop resigned his place from the North Harbour Club and Charitable Trust Boards.
John was one of the founding trustees of the North Harbour Club and Charitable Trust and worked closely alongside Ross Finlayson in the early years, helping to establish the club and mould it into the community spirited organisation it is today.
“I’m extremely proud of the work that has been done and the support that has been given to youth in the North Harbour area,” he says, from his unique perspective as a founder and former trustee that helped guide the Club’s focus and direction.
“From a community point of view that has to be one of the highlights of my career.”
And a varied career it has been.
Born in the UK and raised here on the Shore, John began his professional career back in the UK where he worked with investment banks. When he returned to New Zealand he took a job with ASB Bank, running its Commercial and Business Bank divisions.
“Getting established after returning from the UK was one of the most challenging times of my career. I was a director at Credit Suisse, then coming back here I had to reintegrate back into New Zealand, or more importantly the North Shore,” he says.
That was in 1992, two years before him and Ross started seriously discussing the ideas and concepts that would evolve into the North Harbour Club in 1995.
The initial idea of the club was to develop a business networking forum for the North Harbour community.
“In those days there was no business club or network to develop new business contacts, so we talked about that, but as we went on we realised it will be nice to have a charitable element to the club, so we weren’t just seen to be just a bunch of business people talking about business. We wanted to take an altruistic approach to what we were doing.”
From those humble beginings momentum grew, more people came on board and then the great coup d'etat, confirming Sir Peter Blake as the founding patron. This validated the club somewhat and gave it a lot of the leverage it needed to grow and take hold.
“The challenge in those early days was to get people to recognise the work that we were doing and to get them to support it.”
The Club continued to grow, evolving from an initial 40-odd members, to well over 100.
“A much bigger club now has far more visibility around what it does and a lot more support financially as well.”
What the club has turned into, the influence and support it provides our North Harbour businesses and community, is far bigger than John ever envisioned.
From the business perspective, members have been able to increase their networks and keep in touch with other businesses in the area, and build profitable relationships.
The real support and benefit of the North Harbour Club though is its investment into the community and youth, in their pursuit of excellence.
“It’s hugely rewarding to see all these kids with this talent being recognised and supported in their dreams. We’ve awarded over $1.4 million to youth and I know it has been put to good use in terms of aiding careers or achieving dreams.”
“Every time you go to the AIMES Awards and you see them up there receiving their awards, and you hear about the accomplishments of these kids. I feel very very good about it from the point of view that I, in some small way, helped to achieve this.”
“It’s really tough to get ahead and there are some really smart kids who don’t necessarily come from a privileged or wealthy background, so to be able to compete for large sums of money to support them is extremely well regarded; to reward them is a great feeling.”
It’s those experiences, the youth and community the Club has helped, that makes John’s work with the Club a highlight of his career and allows him to move on to face new challenges.
Since he left ASB, John has taken the path of being an Independent Director, lending his expertise to many organisations.
He currently sits on the New Zealand Rugby League Board as well as that of the Rugby League International Federation; Chairs the Board of Paper Reclaim; the Board of Insurance Holdings Fiji and the Mercy Hospice Foundation Trust. He is also Chairman of KCL Property; Director of International Cargo Systems; and a Governor of Kristin School. In addition to these Board roles he also works with several other businesses offering advice and support to management.
These roles allow him to utilise his skills and experience in a productive way, guiding through leadership.
A long career has taught John many lessons, the key being that business is about people.
“You can be the smartest guy out, but at the end of the day you have to have complimentary skill sets, a culture that people are prepared to follow and strong relationships.”
From his experience, both professionally in business and as a trustee of the club, John’s advice to the youth who so often benefit from the Club is to “follow your dreams, nothing is impossible”.
“In today’s day and age it doesn’t get gifted to you on a plate, you actually have to get out there and work hard.”

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