Fortuitous COVID text propels '25 to Watch' recipient onto national stage
Brad Olsen was named one of the Asia New Zealand Foundation’s '25 to Watch' back in 2019. Acknowledged for his contribution to business and entrepreneurship in the New Zealand-Asia space, we catch up with Brad to reflect on the past five years and see what he's up to now.
Brad receiving his 25 to Watch certificate from Winston Peters
Currently the chief executive and principal economist at Infometrics, 27-year-old Brad Olsen was always destined to be a decision-maker.
Growing up in Whangarei, Brad got involved in community politics early on.
It was when a teenage Brad was working with the local council over the issue of water quality that his economics-focused future was set in motion.
“We put this water data in front of some MPs, and at that moment I could visibly see the cogs start to turn in them. If it’s numbers that are convincing, then I need to master the numbers," he reflects.
Armed with the conviction that numbers are what convince people, Brad journeyed to Wellington to get involved in the beating heart of political and economic life.
“My first week in Wellington, I ran into two MPs in my local supermarket — I knew it was here where the magic happens," he recounts.
Against the advice of most people, Brad pursued a degree in a total of four disciplines: international relations, political science, public policy and economics.
As part of his economic scholarship for being from a provincial town, he was given work experience in addition to the monetary support. It just so happened that his work experience would take him to Infometrics, a Wellington-based economic consultancy he would later head.
During university, Brad set his sights on joining the Asia New Zealand Foundation’s Leadership Network. As an economist, he understood the importance of Asia — “economically, Asia is critical to the country”, he says. But it went deeper than that too.
He was curious about the driving factors behind this flourishing economic relationship. “I knew I needed to know more, and the right way to do that is through an organisation like the Asia New Zealand Foundation."
Brad visited Shanghai in 2019 as part of a Leadership Network's China Hui
In 2019, a year after he joined the Leadership Network, Brad was named as one of the Asia New Zealand Foundation’s 25 to Watch. He was overcome with a healthy mixture of gratitude and imposter syndrome. “I remember thinking, are you guys sure?”, he says.
He viewed the award as a kind of institutional backing — to allow him to get into rooms and do work he might not have been able to do previously.
The 25 to Watch also came with an inextricable sense of obligation for Brad. “It gave me a bit of a push to live up to the name. I’ve been named as a future leader — I better go do that then," he reflects.
Shortly after receiving the award, Covid-19 swept the globe. It was a time of peak disorder and uncertainty. People were looking more than ever for concrete answers — something the certainty of numbers could provide. Brad’s meteoric rise to national media fame would take place within this contextual pressure cooker.
25 to Watch recipients with (front row) the Foundation's former executive director Simon Draper, then Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Rt Hon Winston Peters and former Foundation Chair John Luxton
After the Prime Minister announced the lockdown, Brad was walking home from his CBD office, and stopped into the New World for a sandwich and a drink.
While everyone was panic-buying hordes of toilet paper, Brad, "....got this text from a friend of a friend who worked at TVNZ, saying, ‘Brad, we are breaking into programming to cover this, and we need some economic reaction. Can you get in front of a laptop in half an hour’?”
With his sandwich mission abandoned, a neighbour loudly leaf blowing outside, and an ironing board as a makeshift desk, Brad was ready for TV. He did 6-8 minutes of live back and forth with no preparation and performed exceptionally well.
Brad did so well he immediately got another text from someone at TVNZ asking him to react to a scheduled announcement from the Finance Minister at 4pm the following day. “I had no idea what the announcement would be I had to react to”, he says. But react he did — “and it kind of snowballed from there."
Brad is now one of the leading commentators on the economy in Aotearoa. When he asked a journalist why they always come to him, he was told “one: you pick up the phone - and that’s 50 percent of it. And two: your knowledge is understandable and useful”.
Brad on security detail during the Leadership Network's 2019 China Hui
Hitting the sweet spot of availability and accessibility, becoming a public figure overnight has been the unplanned defining feature of Brad’s journey over the past five years. “It’s an interesting way to live”, he says.
In his words, “I talk to friends my own age and sometimes that integration is a bit hard. And then on the other hand, I talk to other people at the chief executive level and they’re all talking to me about their kids and the holidays they’re having, or what happened in the 80s-90s. So it’s often hard to fully fit into either camp."
Throughout this wild ride, Brad has made time to spotlight the importance of Asia. “Having gone from being a regular old person to being one of the leading commentators on the economy in the country has meant I can also weave in that knowledge on Asia — and more importantly, to highlight the trends people don’t see,” he says.
Brad’s connection to Asia through the Foundation has gone from strength to strength. Apart from foregrounding Asia topics, he has also made several trips back to Asia.
A highlight was when Brad and fellow 25 to Watch alumni and Leadership Network member, Millie Morgan, went on a self-planned trip to China in 2023 to connect with New Zealand businesses in the region.
Brad and Millie brave the cold in China during their 2023 visit
He reflects, “We went and visited one of the biggest social media platforms in China, travelled up to Inner Mongolia in -14 degrees weather, saw a donkey factory in the middle of China. It was wild."
Reflecting on his five-year journey, “I said I would love to be doing 70% of what I currently do in my job in 10 years’ time. And so to do even more than that at my age is still mind-blowing to this day."
Looking to the next five years, Brad is comfortable exactly where he is. In his own words, “I’ve never had a plan in life for where I’m going next. I’ve always just wanted to leave the world better off than when I found it, in whatever way I’m best to do that."
The Asia New Zealand Foundation Leadership Network equips the next generation of Kiwi leaders to thrive in Asia. We provide members with the connections, knowledge and confidence to lead New Zealand’s future relationship with the region.
