The practice
About Data Services Hub
A Wellington advisory practice devoted to leadership counsel for family-owned businesses across New Zealand.
Why we exist
Family firms carry more than balance sheets. They carry surnames, kitchens where deals were once struck, and expectations that can outrun capability. Data Services Hub was founded in Wellington to give those firms a place for hard leadership conversations — succession, stewardship, and the quiet politics of ownership — without treating the business as a generic corporate client.
How we work
We favour facilitated dialogue over slide decks. Individual conversations precede group sessions. Written outcomes follow every meeting. We coordinate with your solicitor and accountant; we do not replace them. If a conflict of interest appears — for example, if two siblings separately ask us to advocate opposing outcomes — we pause and reset the mandate with everyone present.
People
Margaret Hale — Principal advisor
Margaret has spent two decades advising New Zealand family enterprises on succession and governance. She previously worked in commercial banking relationship management, where she watched capable firms stall when ownership and leadership were left unspoken. She facilitates most flagship succession engagements and chairs founding family council sessions.
Tomasi Raukawa — Advisor, next-generation programmes
Tomasi leads readiness coaching for designated successors. His background includes operations roles in a multi-generational food business and later postgraduate study in organisational psychology. He is frank about gaps; clients value that more than reassurance.
Values in practice
- Candour over comfort — We name unreadiness early.
- Mandate clarity — We work for the owners who hold decision rights, in the open.
- Craft over theatre — Meetings produce decisions and documents, not applause.
- Place — We understand New Zealand business culture, including smaller regional firms far from Auckland boardrooms.
Location
Our office is at Level 9, 48 Willis Street, Wellington 6011. Much of our work happens on client sites — factory floors, orchard offices, and retail back rooms — because that is where the real decisions live.