Dr Leith Oliver

Dr Leith Oliver is a Strategic Planning facilitator and lecturer on the University of Auckland MBA programme and Post Graduate Diploma courses. He lectures on Business Growth, Strategic Operations Management, Entrepreneurship and Innovation Management, and runs University short courses on Business Planning. 

 

Along with others from the University of Auckland Leith also heads up the course development and delivery team for the business growth programmes offered by the University of Auckland’s ICEHOUSE business education programme. The courses include the Owner/Managers Programme, 321 Go Global, Leading and Managing for Growth, the Trans-Tasman Agribusiness Programme, and the Better By Design and Business Growth seminars. 

 

He has a broad experience as an owner-manager of many businesses including construction, manufacturing, and retailing. He has co-authored the book "Production Planning Systems Design" with Associate Professor Victor Portougal (Auckland) and is also co-author of the 5^th Ed of the "Small Business Book" with Associate Professor John English (Canberra). In the course of his research and consultancy Leith currently works with many businesses in the areas of strategic planning and the development of management competencies in the fields of finance and accounting, sales and marketing, and operations management.   

 

He custom designs and delivers innovative strategic planning workshops for companies wanting to develop a shared strategic vision for the company based on the drivers of performance within the business. Past clients include the Orthotics Centre, ITM Group, NZIM, Visique, Bell Gully, Fisher & Paykel, Auckland District Police, Holiday Shoppe, Hydraulink Fluid Connectors, Fletcher Building, The Hynds Group, Stevensons Group, Giltrap Group, Andar Holdings, Armourguard and Cerebos Greggs.

 

He has a PhD, an MBA and MPhil with First Class Honours from The University of Auckland. His PhD thesis is based on the design of facilitated learning events aimed at enabling business growth in New Zealand’s medium sized companies.