While travelling around the world researching her latest book on entrepreneurship, Diane Foreman is also scouting for ideas for a new business venture.
Ms Foreman – named EY’s New Zealand entrepreneur of the year in 2009, is writing a book in conjunction with EY on 14 of the global and country winners of the annual competition. She’s one of the world judges for the global Entrepreneur of the Year and came up with the idea for the book after hearing the back stories of each of the entrepreneurs while in the judging room.
The book is due for publication in early 2019.
She thought a new business idea would “jump out at me” while visiting various countries doing the entrepreneur interviews but says she hasn’t found the right thing yet. She’ll turn her attention to new business ventures when the book is completed.
Her first semi-autographical book In the Arena published in 2015 told the story of her journey from single mother to entrepreneurship.
Ms Foreman has changed her name and her new legal entity is Diana Harrington. But she concedes it is hard to do that when you have a public profile under her former name. She says she made the change after her ex-husband, Trigon founder Bill Foreman, died in 2017 but the name she chose shows up in Companies Office records for her companies in 2016.
“I tend to use both [names] but over time it will morph into Diana Harrington,” she says.
When asked which name should be used on the Rich List, she said Diane Foreman because that’s what everyone knows her by.
She was the force behind the success of ice cream brand New Zealand Natural which she bought in 2004 before turning it around, wrapping it into her company Emerald Foods, and selling in 2015 for an undisclosed sum to a Hong Kong-based company.
Her remaining business interests include the Chelsea Group, which renovates and on-sells upmarket homes and the Emerald Group, which owns commercial and residential real estate, including the Emerald Inn motel in Auckland’s Takapuna.
She is also a director and holds a 40% stake in Auckland-based recruitment company Emergent, which was founded in 2002 by Carmen Bailey. Emergent has expanded into Hamilton and also opened a temp division, which she says has had a lot of growth.