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.
Mimi Gilmour Buckley got her start in business early, catering for private dinner parties from the age of 16, inspired by her restaurateur mother and entrepreneurial father. After graduating from the University of Auckland, she worked in hospitality in New South Wales, including running the chef programme at the Taste of Sydney festival. This led to an invitation to be creative director of Auckland’s Taste at the Cloud, staged over 45 days to showcase New Zealand’s food and beverage to visitors attending the 2011 Rugby World Cup. In the following three years, she co-founded the Mexico and Burger Burger chains in New Zealand and Chur Burger in Sydney. She now leads Mates Agency, a brand, design and innovation business.
Gilmour Buckley is also putting her energy and enthusiasm into a new app and skincare line, Iammi, inspired by her daughter Olympia, who was born with a significant brain injury. Working with co-founder Lucinda East Kennedy, she aims to help users build resilience through everyday habits and routines as simple as washing their faces. The app will also track their skin health and mood, and show how the two are related, and provide information and advice from experts across all areas of life. A Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign to get the project started closes this month, having already passed its $50,000 target.
I had a very privileged childhood; it really was wonderful. We had a house on Waiheke which we spent most of my childhood going to at weekends. We were a very social family.
My parents instilled in my sister and me an expectation around work ethic from quite a young age. I'm going to say work hard, play hard – it was an expectation that if you want things in life, you’ve got to earn them.
I went to Remuera Primary and was a bit naughty. I’ve always had an overactive imagination that was constantly testing boundaries. I then got sent to Dio [Diocesan School for Girls in Epsom] and didn't really improve, to be honest.
I survived school because of sport and some amazing art teachers. I had fun. I just didn't thrive at school.
I got into Elam School of Fine Arts at Auckland University. My dad, who’s a doctor, said to me, “There are not many times in your life when you have the freedom to just learn, especially in a creative field. You can learn other things later.”
I’m most proud of the fact that I try to treat others with respect and dignity. If you are kind and respectful, that's the best you can do. I hope that people who work in any of my businesses feel recognised and respected and that they want to come to work every day.
Mimi Gilmour Buckley (right, aged 9) with her sister Sophie.
My biggest failure was that I made some business decisions that were probably driven by my ego. I was blinded by something that I wanted, rather than the collective good – and it cost. The solution was cutting our head office costs, and when I looked at the balance sheet, I was probably the most disposable person on it. So, I ejected myself out of the day-to-day running of my own business.
Failure is always pretty confronting. You have to look in the mirror and have a little conversation with yourself about it.
My brain gets very easily distracted. I have to put some structure around how I'm doing things. If I'm in meetings, I often won't even take my phone in.
Exercise is hugely important for me. If I get more and more stressed, I’ll go through phases and I'll start eating badly. I know what I need to feel balanced – time with my family at home, just quiet time, and sometimes that means cutting out social events.
Iammi is almost like everything coming together. I have a big, global vision for it, which is exciting. And terrifying. And maybe delusional.
My daughter Olympia has a lot of health conditions. She’s taught me about forgiveness and progress over perfection.
I want to give my children the best possible life they can have. And with Olympia, that's constantly trying to look for ways that we can help her gain some independence and have some choices, and that’s what really drives both me and my husband.
As told to Jacqui Loates-Haver.
This interview has been edited for clarity.
