Leader of the Year

The leaders you find within the cooperative and mutual sector are second to none. This award is presented to an individual who has shown outstanding leadership, vision, and passion within their cooperative or the sector in general over the past year.

Award Criteria

This award is presented to an individual who has shown significant cooperative leadership either within a members’ cooperative or the cooperative sector more generally, over 2024/2025 (1 June 2024 – 31 May 2025).

The award recipient must have clearly demonstrated:

Cooperative leadership
Vision and courage for the cooperative model
Successful initiative(s) that have benefited their cooperative or the cooperative sector
Commitment & support of well recognised and accepted cooperative principles

This award is open to all members of Cooperative Business NZ: Full Members, Provisional Members, Corporate Associate Members, Individual Members, and Honorary Members.

Leader of the Year winner 2025

Carl Taylor - Founder and CEO of Combined Building Supplies Co-operative

The Leader of the Year Award recognises exceptional leadership that combines commercial success with the cooperative spirit of courage, collaboration, and care.

Our 2025 recipient, Carl Taylor, founder and CEO of Combined Building Supplies Co-operative, has redefined what leadership looks like in New Zealand’s building sector.

Since starting CBS Co-op in 2018, Carl has grown it into a network of more than 1,900 members with an annual spend topping $66 million – giving independent builders and tradespeople the collective strength once reserved for big corporates.

Over the past year he’s led a major restructure that strengthened governance, returned record profits to shareholders, and positioned the co-op for trans-Tasman expansion. His vision proves that cooperation truly can outperform competition and has positioned CBS Co-op as a transformative force for small and medium enterprises in the building sector.