Nearly 25 years ago Jackie and her husband David opened the first Caci beauty therapy clinic in New Zealand – now there are nearly 50 franchised clinics throughout the country. Last year the Smiths started their global expansion with three Skinsmiths clinics in London and, true to ambitious form, they plan to have 40 Skinsmiths clinics in the UK by early 2019.

“The aesthetic sector can be a real tangle for consumers,” says Jackie. “How to find ‘what is right for me’ in retail skin treatments and products is complicated and so some women opt out. We see an opportunity to provide simplicity.” The Smiths also know who their target customer is. “She is 42-years old with a partner and two kids as well as a full-time job. She has a lot of balls in the air but she also wants good skin.”

So where did it all start? Jackie is a Waikato girl born and bred and was part of the first intake of student nurses at what was then the Auckland Technical Institute. In the mid 80s Jackie and husband David decided it was time to try out the Northern hemisphere, specifically Jersey in the Channel Islands.

Adrienne Pitts visited London for the first time at the age of 16 and knew it was never a place she could live. Cold, grey and unwelcoming were the abiding impressions of her six days there during an arts and classics tour of Europe.

Fast forward 25 years, a slew of design and photography awards, an enviable Instagram following and a successful career as an internationally renowned photographer, and after a decade of calling London “home” she can’t imagine living anywhere else. Her original plan, when she headed there after a relationship ended, was to stay for maybe a year, but as many readers of these pages will know from their own experience, that infamous “just one year” vow is made to be broken.

Although it’s her work as a photographer she is best known for today, she has also forged a reputation as an outstanding art director, even if initially she assumed this field would play second fiddle to a career in photography. Graduating from Massey Wellington with a Bachelor of Design, a photography major and an alarming student loan, her timing was distinctly off. It was the very moment when digital photography was exploding, but her degree had been film-based and she couldn’t quite rustle up the $100,000 necessary to set herself up with the latest digital gear. Always pragmatic, she set about putting her design degree to good use, working as a graphic designer for a Wellington agency, before moving to the Bay of Plenty to take up a dual role as graphic designer-cum-photographer on the magazine Uno.

“Winning without Losing” by Martin Bjergegaard and Jordan Milne was chosen for Business Book Brunch club in February. Their sixty-six tips gave strategies on how to put happiness, family and friends first and yet still have professional success. A group of 20 keen readers came together over brunch to discuss how to have the most important things in life...

The book discusses what it calls the new Dual Optimum, where it is possible to live a happy and balanced life, while at the same time creating a business and a fortune from scratch. As well as not having to come home when our children are asleep or having to say no to friends wanting to have a drink after work, it suggests six to eight weeks of holiday spent travelling around the world each year or doing something other than work to recharge you and broaden your perspective, is not just a very real option, but increasingly a prerequisite for optimum and sustainable efficiency.