MORGO 2025 Bay of Islands: Building your Company in a Changing World
What an incredible line up of speakers to kick off the conversations at MORGO 2025 in the beautiful Bay of Islands.
I knew Flavia Tata Nardini, our opening speaker, was amazing but I didn’t know she was this amazing! What an inspirational woman. And wonderful to hear the story of Peter Beck helping her to get her first two satellites into space when SpaceX delayed the launch.
Flavia was a hard act to follow so lucky that Zak Holdsworth of Hint Health in San Francisco was next up. He’s set himself the modest goal of reforming the US healthcare system – providing a platform for direct care provider organizations to contract directly with consumers and employers. A great presentation too.
Even more stories shared
Most of the MORGO program is CEOs sharing their stories of building their businesses from New Zealand out into the world: Matt Hayter of Projectworks, Leighton Roberts of Sharesies, Stuart Wilson of Modica Group, Ken Brickley of Macroactive, Michael Hartley of ComplyPro, and Ron Tenenbaum of The Clinician – another company set up to shift the way healthcare is funded: from paying for inputs to paying for results.
Leighton Roberts from Sharesies had a wonderful line: “We were sitting there thinking, when will the adults turn up to help us through this? Then we realised, hmmmm, I think we ARE the adults.”
Alia Bojilova kicked off Day Two for us with enormous energy and her extraordinary story of being kidnapped in Syria. Alia has been alongside the Morgo CEO Alumni Program this year. And delighted to tell you that Alia is leading all the Morgo CEO Leadership Programs in 2026.
Ian McCrae used an expanded cameo spot to tell us how AI cured his cancer! Seriously. We’ve recorded that one for you. An amazing story - and a harbinger of huge change in the health industry?
MORGO brain stretch and workshops
We always like to have some brain stretch at MORGO. This time it was talks by Rod Badcock on superconductivity, Boyd Multerer of Kry10 talking about a new operating system to protect crucial infrastructure from cyber-attacks.
In keeping with the theme, we ran a workshop on surviving threats to your business: from cyber attacks to a rogue AI agent to hiring an AI impersonating a person, a litigious competitor claiming you’ve used their IP, to a volcanic eruption in the Aleutian Islands closing down business in the western United States.
After the teams had withstood these attacks, Simon Howard of Bastion Security talked about what is going on in the world of cyber. Very scary!
Amazing recharge
Finally, Mark Rocket shared his experience of going into space with Blue Origin and told us about Kea Aerospace flying up on the edge of space.
Stories about space opened and closed MORGO: a fitting reflection of the theme of living in a rapidly changing world.
But MORGO is not just about the wonderful stories. It’s also the conversations over good coffee, drinks and food, hanging out in the sunshine in the Bay of Islands with Segways, the walk to Haruru Falls.
Once again, many new friends were made and MORGO delivered the re-charge it’s known for!
