Barry Thomas, Mountain Scene founder, retired chartered accountant and former Skyline Enterprises chairman of 33 years, will be honoured at a dinner at Queenstown’s Hotel St Moritz.
IoD chief executive Kirsten Patterson said Mr Thomas, made a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit in 2018 for services to business and tourism, had made a significant contribution in Otago-Southland as well as nationally.
Mr Thomas (76) arrived in Queenstown from Dunedin in 1969. It was a different place then — ‘‘you could drive down The Mall’’, he said.
He ranked the decision to move to the Wakatipu, where he eventually set up his own accountancy practice and was designated to handle all Skyline’s financials, ‘‘and thereupon some management aspects’’, as one of the three most important business decisions he had made.
The first, he said, was going to university to study accountancy, despite his father telling him most went to polytech for that.
The second was taking a position with Dunedin’s W. Gregg & Co, coffee and spice manufacturers in Dunedin, run by the Baker brothers.
Mr Thomas said the ‘‘public, unlisted company’’ operated in the same manner as if it was listed, so after he was appointed to the Skyline board in 1975, soon taking on the chairmanship when he was 32, he ‘‘modelled Skyline on the same type of platform’’.
Under his leadership, Skyline grew to a market capitalisation of $780million, employing more than 1000 full-time staff.
He was confident its future was secure, thanks in part to its diversified portfolio, which included tourism attractions in New Zealand and overseas, and other property interests.
He also had faith in the future of tourism, with one caveat.
‘‘I hear some of these people say, ‘It’s a good time to rejig NZ tourism and we can just take the people we want’.
‘‘That’s rubbish.’’
