Businessman Peter Maire may have made his own millions, but he retains a sense of urgency about helping other New Zealand companies sell to the world.
Probably best known for founding Navman, a leading maker of marine electronics and global positioning technology, Mr Maire has been made today a Distinguished Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit (DCNZM).
Founded in 1987, Navman was sold to United States marine company Brunswick Group for $108.5 million in deal completed in 2004.
Since then Mr Maire has been involved in several other technology companies as a shareholder and director.
New Zealanders were not good at internationalising businesses, but from his experience when a company could successfully address the international market it could grow relatively quickly and quite easily, he said.
"All of the businesses I'm involved in, it's all around doing that. It's about scaling the businesses, increasing them in size to give them more critical mass and then establishing markets, opening offices in lots of different countries and really grow the revenue."
Those companies included Rakon -- a developer of frequency control technology based on quartz crystals -- which was taken public and then acquired a larger company in Europe.
Another was Cadmus, which merged recently with Provenco to form payment and transaction technology company ProvencoCadmus.
He also owns 40 percent of Fusion Electronics, which he said was building an international market and developing automotive and marine products. It already had offices in the US, Britain, Australia and Dubai.
"It's a small company, $30m in sales, but we're growing rapidly globally," he said.
Along with his own business interests, Mr Maire is also on the board of NZ Trade and Enterprise and on the government's Growth and Innovation Advisory Board.
"There's definitely a group of us who've got a sense of urgency around trying to rapidly improve the kiwi company attitude to exporting, and their capability around exporting," he said.
"We've got a fair way to go I think to get the formula right. We've got a lot of hard work to do there."
On the award, Mr Maire said he appreciated being recognised for his involvement in business.
"Business is a hobby of mine, so it's nice to recognised for a hobby."
