Investor Profile – Andrea Zurek

Andrea Zurek

Founding Partner
XG Ventures

newzealandinc.com got the chance to catch up with Andrea to find out what she thought of the entrepreneurial space here in Godzone. “There’s a lot of diversity here in New Zealand,” Zurek said of her time spent here so far. The entrepreneurial landscape was so different to that of the United States according to Zurek, who citied diversity as the driving, distinguishing factor.

We asked Zurek what she was looking for in a business while she was visiting; “It’s generic, it’s cliché, but team matters, the idea matters, segment matters. There’s nothing unique to this.”

Although she’d only been in the country for a short period, a talk from Sir Raymond Avery was clearly an early stand-out for Zurek. “I sat next to Sir [Raymond] Avery after he gave us an amazing speech about the pharmaceutical industry. One of the things he spoke about was that a number of New Zealanders have done amazing things but culturally they don’t necessarily brag about a lot of their accomplishments.”

Tall poppy syndrome was one quality that Zurek was keen to see eliminated from the Kiwi persona. “That’s something I really look forward to changing. Look at Xero, I’m curious and I want one of my take-aways from this whole trip to be that I really saw what other amazing companies that are out there. I’m sure there are so many out there that have done incredible things that we just don’t know about and in the future, I really look forward to hearing about more successes coming out of New Zealand.”

And on the subject of a return visit to New Zealand, Zurek was enthusiastic: Absolutely! I love the hospitality here. New Zealanders have been great to us while we’ve been here”

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