The Mountain Club Podcast
Conversations with industry leading minds, business extraordinaries, creative thinkers and valued members of Mountain Club. Empowering business, commercial and community growth, we are here to discover what drives our members to connect. Jointly hosted by Paddy Kluts and Clare Irons, we're here to do cool sh!t with cool people.
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Inside WIT Queenstown: Roger Sharp on Travel Tech, Innovation, and Economic Resilience
<p>Paddy sits down with Roger Sharp, founder and chair of Technology Queenstown and former chair of Webjet, who watched Queenstown's tourism-dependent economy buckle under COVID and decided a one-industry town wasn't good enough anymore. </p><p>Roger explains how he convinced a university to launch a tech campus in Queenstown, why he bet on tourism itself as the way into a travel tech ecosystem, and what it actually took to bring the global WIT conference here and fill Memorial Hall with some of the world's most famous CEOs from Agoda, Air New Zealand, Expedia, and more.</p><p>He...
The Future of Fashion in Aotearoa: A Live Panel with Lou Heller, Hamish Acland, Christina Perriam, and Nat Newlands
<p>Recorded live for New Zealand Fashion Week, Clare Irons sits down with four people shaping the future of the industry in Aotearoa: stylist Lou Heller, Mons Royale co-founder Hamish Acland, Perriam founder Christina Perriam, and Nat Newlands, designer behind NEWLANDS and Legacy Land. All four grew up on farms, and all four have built businesses at the intersection of creativity, sustainability, and identity.</p><p>The conversation moves from origin stories to the hard realities of making fashion in New Zealand. Christina makes the case that longevity is sustainability, and why a $400 piece worn for ten years beats fast...
The Right People, the Right Drugs, the Right Reasons: Dr Pragati Gautama and Grace Cooper on Medicalising Psychedelics
<p>Psychedelic-assisted therapy is coming to New Zealand. Paddy sits down with two Mountain Club members, Dr Pragati Gautama, a GP and rural hospital specialist with more than 30 years in medicine, and Grace Cooper, a former registered nurse and counsellor, for an illuminating conversation on the practice they are building following the country's approval of its first prescriber in June 2025.</p><p>Pragati and Grace delve into the personal motivations that led them to this groundbreaking field, tracing the history of psychedelics from ceremonial plant use to modern medical advancements, and the science of how these substances work on the...
Know Your Customers by Name: Annika Grant on Country Lane, the Collective, and Community-First Development
<p>What happens when a family farm runs out of reasons to keep raising sheep, but the family refuses to give up the land? </p><p>Host Paddy sits down with Annika Grant, co-founder of Country Lane, a working farm on the outskirts of Queenstown reimagined into a 28-tenant boutique village built from salvaged and relocated buildings, including the old Queenstown District High School and cabins rescued from the demolished Lakeview Holiday Park. </p><p>Annika shares how it began with her sister-in-law sewing a children's clothing line in a converted hay barn, why the hand-picked Country Lane Collective is...
Leading Te Araroa: Matt Claridge on New Zealand’s Longest Trail
<p>What begins as a walk often becomes something far greater. Clare sits down with Matt Claridge, Chief Executive of Te Araroa, New Zealand’s 3,000 kilometre pathway stretching from Cape Reinga to Bluff. More than a track, it weaves through cities, backcountry, and communities, offering a deeply personal journey for those who step onto it.</p><p>Together, they explore the evolving role of the trail, from tourism and sustainability to community connection and access to the outdoors. The conversation moves beyond logistics into meaning, unpacking why people walk and what they discover along the way.</p><p>Through stories fr...
The Augmented Human: Drew Knowles and Dr Simon McKenzie-Nickson on the Science of Sustainable High Performance
<p>Host Paddy Kluts sits down with Drew Knowles and Dr Simon McKenzie-Nickson, the duo behind the Augmented Human Series, for a conversation on burnout, busyness, and the biology underneath both. Drew brings three decades across behavioural consulting, stress physiology, and human performance. Simon brings a PhD in neuroscience and deep flow state research.</p><p>Together they trace the exhaustion so many ambitious people are quietly carrying back to its roots in the nervous system, hormone biology, and behavioural patterns that were never built for the 50 gigabytes of input a day we are currently taking in. </p><p>The...
Pete Seligman: You Don’t Have to Start a Business to Own One
<p>What happens when entrepreneurship shifts from starting businesses to acquiring and growing the ones already built? Paddy sits down with Pete Seligman to explore the growing momentum behind entrepreneurship through acquisition (ETA) across Australia and New Zealand, and why it is becoming an increasingly compelling path for operators, investors, and aspiring business owners.</p><p>Together, they unpack the foundations of a successful ETA ecosystem, from community and investor alignment to the relationship between an operator and the business they choose to lead. The conversation explores succession planning, long-term ownership, and the opportunities emerging across both sides of the...
Powering the Future: Mat Woods & Mike Casey on Leading Electrification in Queenstown
<p>Clare sits down with Mat Woods, Chief Executive of Destination Queenstown, and Mike Casey, CEO of Rewiring Aotearoa and Central Otago's electric cherry orchardist, for a live episode recorded for Electrify Queenstown. Together they unpack what it really means to lead the world on electrification, and why Queenstown is uniquely placed to do it. The conversation moves from the economics of running a country on its own energy, to the stories behind the shift, to the everyday decisions reshaping how New Zealanders live, work, and travel. Mat and Mike explore how a small district at the end of a...
Capturing Place: Anika Willner on Organic Winemaking and Building a Legacy at Coalpit Winery
<p>What does it mean to truly capture a place in a bottle of wine? Clare sits down with Anika Willner, winemaker at Coalpit Vineyard, to explore the philosophy behind organic viticulture and the deep connection between land, people, and wine. </p><p>From her early years in Ohio to working vintages across Europe, Australia, and the United States, Anika shares the journey that led her to Central Otago, and together they unpack the realities of organic winemaking, from biodiversity and vine health to conservation, climate resilience, and the responsibility of farming for future generations. </p><p>More than a...
What Does Peace Mean to You? Artist and Photographer Stuart Robertson’s Global Search
<p>A conversation shaped by perspective, place, and the pursuit of something deeper. Stuart Robertson, artist, photographer, and the force behind Peace in 10,000 Hands, shares how his work has taken him from Queenstown to some of the most remote and confronting corners of the world.</p><p>Through experiences in places like Ukraine and Antarctica, Stu reflects on what it means to document humanity, capturing moments of connection, resilience, and quiet strength across vastly different cultures and environments. His work is less about the image itself, and more about the stories, people, and shared emotion behind it.</p><p>Host...
