Rules Worth Breaking: What Would You Do?
14 October 2026
- Scaling Up
- Investors and enablers
Real founder decisions. Three experienced perspectives. You make the call first. Founding a company rarely comes with a clean playbook.
The hardest decisions are often the ones where there is no obvious right answer, only different risks, trade-offs and consequences. So this won’t be another AI event, and it won’t be your typical panel discussion.
Rules Worth Breaking: What Would You Do? is an interactive founder session built around real questions and dilemmas submitted by New Zealand startup founders.
For each case, we’ll put a familiar founder rule on the table and ask the audience:
Follow it. Break it. Or rewrite it?
You’ll make the call first.
Then the founder behind the dilemma will bring their situation into the room, where three highly experienced New Zealand entrepreneurs and business leaders will question the assumptions, unpack the risks and share what they would do, and why.
Expect candid conversation, different perspectives, healthy disagreement and the kind of decision-making insight founders don’t usually get from a keynote, podcast or polished success story.
As the session unfolds, we’ll capture the rules that get challenged and rewritten, finishing with:
The New Founder Playbook
A set of principles created live from the real decisions explored in the room.
If you’re building something, questioning the usual advice, or want to see how experienced founders and business leaders think through difficult decisions when there is no obvious answer, this session is for you.
Free
Speakers
Amber Taylor
Founder at Native Sentient Ventures
Amber Taylor is an Indigenous Systems Builder, AI Governance Strategist, Business Mentor and founder of Native Sentient Ventures. With more than 15 years’ experience across research, innovation, commercialisation and digital systems design, she has worked alongside founders, organisations and leaders navigating emerging technology and growth. Amber is a MBIE research grants assessor, a Board Director and a Trustee of the NZ HiTech Trust. Her work focuses on AI governance, digital sovereignty, decision systems and building organisational capability without creating dependency. She is passionate about helping founders build strong, responsible and future-ready businesses.
Lou Walker
Co-Founder & Managing Director at AKIAKI Limited
Lou Walker (Te Atihaunui a Pāpārangi) is the Co-founder and managing director of AKIAKI Limited, a provisional chartered accountant, māmā and wife blending her passion for business and commercial nous with her commitment to her whānau and Te Ao Māori.
Shyr Godfrey
Co-Owner & Co-Founder at Forty Thieves Nut Butters
Shyr Godfrey is the co-owner and co-founder of Forty Thieves Nut Butters. Together with her husband Brent, she has built Forty Thieves into one of New Zealand’s leading premium nut butter brands, stocked in 500+ supermarkets nationwide and exported across Australia and Asia.
A creative problem solver and natural hustler, Shyr leads the brand, marketing and global expansion strategy, with a focus on building a values-driven business and strong community around adventure, performance and everyday wellness.
Shyr is also the host of Smashing PBs, a podcast where she chats with inspiring Kiwis who consistently show up as their Personal Bests.
Vaughan Fergusson
Founder, Investor & Advisor
Vaughan Fergusson is a founder, investor and advisor to NZ tech startups. In 2009 he cycled the length of New Zealand, then came home and started Vend, the cloud retail platform sold for NZD 500 million in 2021. He is an EY Tech Entrepreneur of the Year, a Flying Kiwi in the NZ Hi-Tech Hall of Fame and a TEDx speaker. He likes to do hard things and important things: he has cycled around the world, run 1,000 km, and sets himself an impossible challenge every year. These days he and his partner Zoe run an eco-lodge in Raglan, where they host groups looking to get away and think freshly. He calls his philosophy Punk Capitalism: profit as proof you built something useful, not the point of building it.
Venue
The Annex
10 Madden Street
Wynyard Quarter
Auckland Central 1010
Conveniently situated next to GridAKL, The Annex is a contemporary venue with a striking exterior, providing a light-filled space with a large outdoor area to extend the scope of your event. This blank canvas has state-of-the-art AV facilities and is a timeless space for product launches, fashion shows, strategy sessions and workshops. The venue is in Auckland's waterfront neighbourhood, just a stone's throw from the motorway and city centre.