Organising a match to raise funds for the Samoan Tsunami Relief effort as General Manager of New Zealand Rugby League last October was the spark that led Peter Cordtz to think of a career outside of the game he served for a decade. INNES LOGAN interviews the 44-year old, now the new chief executive of the Pacific Business Trust
You would expect nothing could come close to seeing the national team of the code you represent become world champions for the very first time. Particularly when it’s rugby league, as the Kiwis throughout history have played second, and often third, fiddle behind Australia and Great Britain. So it’s hardly surprising that the Kiwis 2008 World Cup triumph in Brisbane is the first highlight to spring to mind for Peter Cordtz, who served as General Manager of New Zealand Rugby League for seven years up until the start of this year.
As he mentions it, however, he’s quick to move on to another career-defining moment, one that was borne out of tragedy, namely the Samoan tsunami of September 2009.
“The Samoan domestic side was due to come here to play the New Zealand Residents, and the tsunami struck at the same time they were in the Cook Islands,” recalls the 44-year-old of Samoan (Magiagi) and Maori (Ngati Wai and Ngati Hine) descent.
“I contacted them and they said they still wanted to come. So we decided it would be a great way to create an appeal event. It was the first such event organised for the tsunami appeal. Entertainers were queuing up with guys like Ruben Wiki coming out of retirement to contribute. It was huge, just one of those things which woke me up and made me look beyond what I was doing. I felt I was doing something really useful for our community.”
The community Peter Cordtz grew up in was Favona, Mangere, south Auckland. As son to Herman and Elizabeth (Betty) nee Wetere, he says he grew up with a strong work ethic and parents who valued education.He would carry that through secondary school at Mangere College, where he reached 7th form in 1983. He admits there were temptations to join the workforce instead of furthering his education at tertiary level.
“When my mates who left school started earning money driving trucks or working in factories and had nice cars bought on HP I started to feel cursed,” he says.
Even more so when he started an IT course and disliked it so much, he quit. His mother told him to speak to his bosses at Tregidga brothers, local growers where he worked part-time.
They convinced him to stick to education, moving to Palmerston North to study applied sciences in Agriculture and Horticulture at Massey University. After four years he had a degree and remained in the agri business sector for eight years, returning to Auckland from the Hawke’s Bay with his family in 1995 (married to Catherine and now with three sons – Jacob aged 16, Samuel 13 and Matthew 11).
“Being away from south Auckland and in an industry foreign to most Maori and Pacific people, it was a huge and important learning curve,” he recalls.
Peter worked in the Sports, Fitness and Recreation Industry Training Organisation (SFRITO) as an Industry Advisor specialising in Sport and Pasifika traineeships. The organisation recognised his leadership. The problem was that he didn’t.
“They wanted to groom me for a leadership role, give more responsibility and with it a management title. Initially, I knocked it back, saying I was of better use to the organisation working in the trenches.”
When his CEO enrolled him into a Pasifika leadership course at Victoria University, he had no choice. It ended up providing him far more than he imagined.
“Marilyn Kohlhase was running it and there I met Pauline Winter, who was a guest speaker. Colin Tukuitonga was one of the participants with me. Looking where he is now (current MPIA CEO) it obviously helped,” he says with a laugh.
Peter Cordtz believes his initial reluctance to take leadership responsibility, despite others seeing his potential, is an all-too-common trait among Maori and Pacific people. In the decade since that course, he has gone a long way to fulfill that potential.
Working in rugby league, which is often in the media spotlight, it was sorely needed. He sees his appointment as CEO at the Trust as an excellent opportunity to genuinely give back to a community that was so much a part of his upbringing.
“Part of any CEO’s role is to recognise and harness relationships with a diverse range of stakeholders, who all have their own expectations,” he says.
“That requires leadership and management skills and communication. I’m fully aware that we, as Pacific people, don’t feature as prominently in business as we’d like. I’m keen to tackle that and show those who had faith in appointing me that they’ve made the right decision.”
