Jarrod Saxton

Jarrod Saxton is a self-confessed “daredevil in business” who gets a thrill out of running his own start-up company, Kita, which  uses innovative technologies to improve the sport of rowing.

“I've developed a safety product for Kita and brought it to market, and one of my first customers was Rowing New Zealand."

A former rower, Jarrod did a business degree at Waikato Management School, majoring in Entrepreneurship and Supply Chain Management.

“I wanted to develop essential skills that would allow for self-employment, as well as project management and decision-making techniques," says Jarrod, who launched Kita while he was still a student at university.

“When you learn with the expectation that you'll be building a career around that knowledge, you tend to learn faster and more effectively,” he says.

A highlight of his degree was the third-year paper Entrepreneurship and Innovation.

“We worked in a team to develop a plan for a new start-up business in the healthcare sector, working with the maxillofacial surgery department at Waikato District Health Board. We came up with the idea of converting CAT scan data of patients’ faces into a 3D printer format, for the purpose of surgical planning and facial reconstruction.”

For an industry experience paper, Jarrod worked at the Gallagher Group. He conducted research into the firm’s supply chain and manufacturing processes, and identified ways to reduce production costs without reducing quality.

Jarrod also met Gallagher’s deputy CEO Steve Tucker, who offered to act as a mentor and provide feedback on his business plan for Kita. “I was surprised by how effective his feedback was in improving my business. Having someone of his calibre mentoring me for my business plan was a memorable experience,” says Jarrod.