About us

Kia Orana,

I was born and raised in Rarotonga (Cook Islands) a small island in the South Pacific (approximately 6,000 acres), where the land and ocean were my playground until I 7 and moved to New Zealand. As the eldest of four, I spent my childhood raising pigs, fishing, and working on the plantation, growing whatever the season dictated—kumara, maniota, taro, bananas and pawpaw. Sounds like the plot to a movie where the country boy gets recruited by the cartel, right? Well, that didn’t happen, but I did get recruited into a different kind of organization.

Life back then was simple but tough. School, rugby league, chores, scraps with my older cousins (lots of cousins) in an attempt to climb the pecking order, and plenty of daydreaming about what I wanted to be when I grew up. At one point, I wanted to be an astronaut, then a fighter jet pilot, then a chef—totally logical career progression, right? What I didn’t realise at the time was that the hard work...