Welcome to My Net Worth, our regular column on the lives and motivations of our country’s top business, legal and political people in their own words.

Former champion athlete Michael Aherne’s involvement in the gaming industry began in Sydney in 2000, when he joined the Star Entertainment Group, operator of the Star Casino, initially as manager of business analysis and special projects. In his 10 years with the company, he rose to be chief operating officer (gaming). This was followed by three years as COO (Australia and New Zealand) for Aristocrat Leisure, suppliers of electronic gaming machines and casino management systems. After a three-year interlude working between Dublin and London for Paddy Power Betfair, a world leader in sports betting and gaming, he moved back Downunder in December 2017 to join SkyCity in Auckland as group COO. Less than three years later, he was made the CEO. He is a qualified accountant and holds a master of business administration degree from the University of Technology, Sydney. While at boarding school in Ireland, he became the national shot-put and discus champion, and captained the Irish athletic schoolboys’ team in competitions in Ireland, the UK and throughout Europe. He and wife Kay, a secondary school teacher, have three children, all born in Sydney. 

I grew up on a dairy farm in County Waterford, Ireland. I was the eldest of five. My first exposure to work was milking cows and that's pretty tough work, 365 days a year. 

I wasn’t a shy child, but I wasn't wild either. I didn't cause too much trouble for my parents, I don’t think. 

I did pretty well at school. I wasn’t a genius but I was a reasonably hard worker. I spent a lot of my teens doing sport – Gaelic football, hurling, athletics, discus and shot-put. So that kept me largely out of trouble. My mother and father sent us to boarding school so that we wouldn't be just absorbed by living on a farm, that we got to go away and have opportunities to do other things.  

My parents taught me a lot about being real, being authentic and true to yourself. My mother, in particular, has a very good moral compass and knowing the difference between right and wrong and sticking to that.

Initially, I wanted to be a vet, but I think I must have figured out how difficult and challenging the job was somewhere along the line, and then decided to study accounting at university. I wasn't going to be a farmer.

Michael Ahearne aged 16 during his time as captain of the Irish Schools Athletics male team.

 

I get a lot of pride from my children. We have a 20-year-old, a 17-year-old and a 15-year-old, so my pride often comes from watching them succeed, rather than my own success. 

Careers are a long journey. They’re a bit of your own creation, a bit of hard work, a bit of luck and timing.

Failure is part of life. In sport, you're failing as much as you are succeeding; you're never perfect in what you're doing. You might come third rather than winning; maybe at the time you think it's failure, but in reality, it might be real success. In your career, some things don't work as well as you want them to, with the greatest will in the world, but what counts is what you learn from that. 

In business, if you're not having enough failures, that means you're potentially not taking enough risk, that you're not challenging yourself and doing new things. There's a balance of innovation and creativity and trying new things. Some of that will be failure. 

My best business advice is that whatever business you're in, you need a deep insight into the customer. What your customers are looking for, both now and in future trends, is critically important. 

Resilience is something you must have to be a business leader these days. You need to handle stress and challenging environments. You have to modify and change and refine your style; it’s part of keeping yourself up to date and relevant.

I compartmentalise my life if I can. I like exercise; I think it’s important. I cycle out in Auckland’s Waitākere Ranges most weekends. I've taken up yoga recently, once a week; it’s good for my flexibility. And I recently splurged on a new jet-ski for summer. 

As told to Jacqui Loates-Haver.
This interview has been edited for clarity.