A Giant Will Be Remembered

Kevin Roberts Is Founder of Red Rose Consulting; Business Leader and Educator; Author and Speaker; Adviser on Marketing, Creative Thinking and Leadership.

ONE RAINY MID-WEEK winter’s evening in 2010, in the build-up to the All Blacks’ first home test of the season, I hosted a dinner for several people at my home in Auckland.

Among the guests were a celebrity chef, an acclaimed actress, some well-known faces from the worlds of business and fashion – and a retired rugby player.

A very famous rugby player. Which is like saying the Rolling Stones have a lead singer. A famous lead singer.

Sadly, the famous rugby player is no longer with us, but the name Jonah Lomu will never be forgotten. Incredibly it will be two years this November since the Big Man’s untimely passing shocked not only the rugby world, but the whole planet.

Who will ever forget the Irish Examiner’s poignant, brilliant front page tribute, which spoke for us all?

Also at the dinner that night was film and TV producer Steven O’Meagher of Desert Road, who was telling me about two projects his company was developing.

One – The Golden Hour – would become the superb story of Peter Snell, Murray Halberg and Arthur Lydiard, which earned Desert Road an International Emmy documentary nomination in 2013, the first Kiwi company to do so.

The other project involved my friend Jonah Lomu. Because Steven had persuaded Jonah that his life story should be made into a feature film. And after some humming and hahing, Jonah had agreed.