Founder, Trade Me (Wellington)

Founder, Trade Me (Wellington)

Sam is Wellington born and bred. After attending school in Wellington and a brief but unsuccessful stint at university, he started his career as an IT consultant for Deloitte Consulting.

In 1999, Sam founded Trade Me – New Zealand’s largest and most successful Internet business. Trade Me now accounts for over half of all of the locally served traffic on the NZ Internet. Sam sold Trade Me to Australian media giant Fairfax for $750m in 2006.

Sam is now the non-executive Chairman of Trade Me, an investor in tech start-ups, such as Sonar6, and is a director of NZX listed company Xero.

Sam also has a portfolio of social investments, from funding the development of affordable medical devices for developing countries to supporting successful microfinance projects in the Pacific Islands.