A Modern Model

The Roberts family came to New Zealand never imagining that 18 years later their roots would be as deeply sunk into the soil as those of the native trees surrounding their Auckland home.

Words: Kate Coughlan   Photographs: Kevin Emirali

A view of the Roberts family's state-of-the-art
house in Auckland.

In 1989 the Roberts family flew in from Canada – Kevin and Rowena and their three children (Ben, then 11, Bex, eight and Dan, five) – so Kevin could take up his new role as COO of Lion Nathan. If the truth be known, they didn’t expect New Zealand to become their home forever.

Already this UK-born couple had lived in more countries than many people visit in a lifetime. It was their sixth international move since leaving London in 1975 with all their worldly possessions packed into a Morris 1100, pointed at the Swiss Alps. Their first baby had been born in the Moroccan city of Casablanca where Kevin had gone to work as senior marketing manager for Procter & Gamble. Morocco was, in those days, a very poor country and deciding to give birth to her first child there was not so much the result of Rowena being plucky and intrepid – though she is, undoubtedly, both plucky and intrepid – as not having any idea what childbirth was going to be like.

She, one of London’s hot young things in the 1970s scene of platform shoes and daisy-print minidresses, knew a lot about modelling and make-up but nothing about babies. For four years she had modelled for the high priestess of the 60s and 70s fashion scene, Mary Quant. Quant’s dangerously short micro-miniskirt, paint-box make-up and plastic raincoat came to symbolize that extraordinary era in which London led the world of fashion. Life was exciting for the young South London-born Rowena. Hers was a life lived well and truly in the glamorous fast lane.

Her late father, Don Honeywill, a well-known saxophonist, played with many legendary musicians. It is his sax solo on the Beatles’ classic All You Need Is Love. Hear him also on Sinatra’s You Make Me Feel So Young and Tom Jones’ It’s Not Unusual. (Ro, an enthusiast for celebrating, is currently planning her mother Rita’s 80th birthday party themed, wall-to-wall, with her father’s music.)

At Mary Quant Ro met her husband-to-be Kevin, now the worldwide head of Saatchi & Saatchi and internationally renowned business leader. It was Kevin’s success in gaining a job in marketing with Procter & Gamble that first took the nomadic pair abroad. "We were so green in those days. After Quant Kevin had worked for Gillette before getting the job with Procter & Gamble in Switzerland. So we set out in our old Morris 1100 to drive there, over the mountains, in winter, no chains … When you are young you don’t worry. You just get on and do things and never think anything can go wrong."

Moving right away from high fashion, Ro got a job as a coordinator for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. This earned her, as part of a wider team, a joint Nobel Peace Prize for work on behalf of refugees from Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam, the African sub-continent and Upper Volta. After Geneva came Morocco and the arrival of first son, Ben. During these years of moving from country to country, often to places without good infrastructure (in Morocco people were so poor rubbish bags were a prized and often-stolen item), Ro was fully occupied with the family. Often then, as is still the case today, she managed the family on her own while Kevin travelled for business. She isn’t bothered at all by this. In fact she says it mirrors her own upbringing in which her strong and independent mother coped with the family single-handedly on many occasions while her musician father toured.

After a year in Casablanca the Roberts moved back to Geneva for another three years and, despite having lived there before, Ro made the mistake of house-hunting in summer. "Our cute little Swiss cottage (L’Ancienne Poste – the old Post Office) in the Jura mountains was gorgeous in summer but froze for five months every winter. We had to use chains to leave the property." This stint in Geneva was quite a long one for the Roberts family and the next move, to Cyprus, involved a change of company as well. Kevin became Vice President of Pepsi Cola, Middle East. The years in Cyprus were very happy for Ro and the children as a large expatriate community provided infrastructure for easy living such as a supermarket on a military base that she could access as long as her son went to Cubs. He went to Cubs all right, even when he didn’t want to.

Pepsi Cola then offered Kevin the role of President for Pepsi Cola, Canada. So off to Canada – and a seven-month winter – they went. It was from Canada that Lion Nathan lured Kevin, today one of New Zealand’s greatest advocates, to "the far side of the world and about as far away from our families as we could be," says Ro.

Dan and Bex relaxing at home with their parents, Ro and Kevin.

Print

12next ›last »