Episode 34: Chris Quin

In Leaders Getting Coffee episode 34, our guest is Foodstuffs CEO, Chris Quin. 

The supermarket industry is never far from the headlines. Whether we’re talking about grocery prices, retail crime or allegations of monopoly pricing, the supermarket is front and centre.

But they are also massive businesses playing a critical role in our daily lives and our communities. 

Chris Quin is the CEO of Foodstuffs North Island, the largest grocery business in New Zealand. His leadership experiences have seen him through an outstanding career that includes over two decades at Telecom/Spark, before joining the grocery giant.

He grew up in a family that moved around a lot but ultimately settled in Wellington where he attended St Pat’s Silverstream College near Wellington, where he became Head Boy. An accounting degree from Victoria University followed, while working part time at a supermarket (what else?) to pay his way through his studies. 

During the Leaders Getting Coffee podcast Chris Quin speaks passionately about the twenty-four years he spent at Telecom and Spark, his passion for technology and his two failed attempts at winning the top job there.

But it was the challenges of the grocery world that ultimately saw him sit in the CEO’s office, and from where he has made his mark for the last decade.  We talk in detail about the drive to keep groceries affordable and the efforts to merge Foodstuffs’ North and South Island businesses in order to continue the search for maximum productivity. Quin is forthright in his views of the importance of the merger and his reaction to the Commerce Commission ruling that it should not proceed.

We also discuss the alarming boost in retail crime over recent years, and how facial recognition technology is one of many technology-based tools helping to win that fight.

Chris Quin is the leader of one of our biggest businesses, and one with which we all interact more than any other. In sharing his experiences there are plenty of lessons for aspiring and established leaders alike.

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