Vita boss Maxine Horne’s epic journey from Spring Hill Baths to boardroom

A BRIEF stopover in Brisbane on her way to a new life in New Zealand was the start of an epic journey for Maxine Horne.

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FOR then English tourist Maxine Horne, it was an idyllic afternoon spent lazing by the pool at the Spring Hill Baths on her way to New Zealand that was the start of an epic journey that eventually placed her at the helm of a $360 million publicly listed company.

The chief executive of Brisbane-based mobile phone giant Vita Group says her visit to the River City in the early 1990s was supposed to be a brief stopover on the way to a new life in New Zealand with her then husband David.

“We had an eight-hour stopover in Brisbane so we decided to get a cab into the city,” Horne recalls. “Somehow, we ended up at the Spring Hill Baths and spent the day there by the pool.”

Maxine Horne, chief executive of Vita Group. Picture: Russell Shakespeare

When the couple eventually caught their flight to Auckland, Horne remembers coming off the plane with the wind blowing a gale and the rain pelting down.

The stark contrast to the Brisbane sunshine was cruel. “I turned to David and told him I was not moving to New Zealand,” she said.

“I wanted to move to Brisbane.”

Born in Ipswich in England, Horne spent most of her early years living with her grandparents after her parents split up and while her gasfitter father was away working on oil rigs. Her late grandparents still loom large in her life, describing them as “kind and decent” working class people who provided her with a lasting moral compass.

“My grandfather was a carpenter working for a piggery while my grandmother was a cleaner at a pub,” Horne says. “My grandfather used to say half effort gets you half results while my grandmother would say don’t do anything that you would not like to read on the front page of the newspaper.”

Despite being the country’s wealthiest female company executive, with an estimated fortune of more than $100 million, Horne says her grandmother’s frugality still has an impact on her.

“She used to have these jars lined up in her cupboard and when she got paid she would place a certain amount in one jar to pay the rent and some in another jar to pay for groceries,” she says. “I still do that but with bank accounts.”

Her first job was at a local hairdresser and corner store, aged 13. She began her career at Barclays Bank before moving on to British telco Mercury Communications and then its subsidiary Mercury Paging.

She says her key motivation in moving to Australia was giving her children the opportunity to have an idyllic childhood. She considers her children, aged 16 and 21, to be her biggest achievement.

Chief Executive Officer of Vita Group Limited, Maxine Horne. Picture: Tara Croser.

Horne says the couple did not intend to start a mobile phone company but admits the timing was perfect.

“The industry was about to take off,” she says.

“At the time, mobile phones were selling for about $5000 and were just for business people and so-called yuppies.”

Horne and David McMahon started a company called Fone Zone in 1995 with one store at Pacific Fair on the Gold Coast. They saw an early opportunity to sell phones in shopping malls, despite a landlord telling them that people did not buy mobile phones in malls.

“I told him that was because they can’t,” she says.

By the end of 1995, Fone Zone boasted 12 stores in Queensland, NSW and Victoria.

Today the company, now known as the Vita Group, is a publicly listed national telecoms and computing operation. It has 100 Telstra Stores, 21 Telstra Business Centres, a government and corporate business, and a growing accessories brand called Sprout.

The business went public in 2005, with Horne and McMahon as joint CEOs.

When the couple’s marriage ended in 2013, Horne was appointed as sole chief executive in 2014 and McMahon left the business.

Horne admits the company’s reliance on Telstra could be seen as a weakness but Vita has made efforts to diversify in recent years.

Sprout, for example, sells everything from cables and tablet cases to charging stations
and headphones.

The company will focus on expanding the number of small and medium sized businesses as well as fine tuning its retail operations.

“At the heart of our strategy is the continued focus on our people and creating a culture where talented people can thrive.”

This article first appeared in the March edition of Queensland Business Monthly, which inserts in The Courier-Mail on the last Friday of every month.

March edition of Queensland Business Monthly