Stuff profiles Crone

Stuff profiles Victoria Crone:

She’s the boss of Xero’s New Zealand operation, and before that she was at Chorus, where she came up with the idea for that Gigatown competition.

She used to help out at the City Mission before her career got too busy. 

She plays the piano and likes to kayak. She has two daughters, has an Auckland apartment and a house in Muriwai.

You’ve probably barely heard of her, but for her next trick she wants to try running New Zealand’s biggest city.

On Monday, all going well, Victoria Crone, 42, will get off the fence she’s been perching on for the past month, and announce she’s going to take a tilt at the Auckland mayoralty. …

She grew up in Wellington. Her mother Marvyn trained as a nurse and was a stay-at-home mum; her dad Rowland was an accountant and later a chief executive and national president of the Manufacturers Federation.

She was raised Anglican and believes in God. Both parents did voluntary work, including for the Special Olympics, as did Victoria.

She has a masters in Commerce and Administration from Victoria University and took piano to LTCL level – “I had the option to pursue music, but picked business.”

She spent 18 years at Telecom then Chorus in marketing and sales roles before taking the Xero job in April last year.

She’s single. She sits on a number of boards including that of Wellington’s business incubator Creative HQ and Figure.NZ, an online open-data organisation.

She enjoys kayaking and endurance sports. She likes the food at Depot in Federal St, and the Strand in Parnell. She likes Coldplay and U2 but her musical choices are currently dominated by the poppish taste of her daughters Megan, 15, and Mackenzie, 11.

The Auckland Council put rates up 99 times greater than the rate of inflation. We have 0.1% inflation and they stuck Aucklanders with a 9.9% increase. Auckland needs a leader and Council who will reduce spending, not increase it.