About Ken King
The fixer
One career, one job description, a lifetime of different scenery: things breaking in awkward places, and someone needing them fixed by Friday.
One career, one job description, a lifetime of different scenery: things breaking in awkward places, and someone needing them fixed by Friday.
Ken started out as a diesel mechanic apprentice in the agricultural sector — repairing farm machinery in extreme cold, snow and mud, out in the paddock wherever it broke down. Difficult conditions, and the gear still had to go.
Then a sudden change in direction opened a door into the film industry, something he was already drawn to, and that's where he finished his trade certificate. From there the work kept opening up — logistics, then analyst roles and senior management.
Then came the GM and GSM roles in business rebuilds — the difficult jobs, the ones where the fix matters more than the title. Offshore contracting followed, across the Pacific, Dubai, China and wider Asia, and years self-employed on short and medium-term contracts: parachute in, sort it, hand it back working. Somewhere in there he taught himself to code, which turned into building New Zealand's first commercial AI companion. And film never quite let him go — productions still call when they need a helicopter within the hour, a council sign-off that was impossible yesterday, a full crew standing on a location by Monday, or the one local number nobody else has.
"Different scenery. Same job."
A helicopter, a vehicle, a generator — found, negotiated, on site.
The council sign-off, the location access, the permit that suddenly opens.
The right people standing on a location, briefed, on a deadline.
The one local number nobody else has. That's the whole trade.
These days the thing Ken fixes most is New Zealand businesses — the owner buried in a role nobody designed, the money leaking through jobs nobody owns, the system underneath that quietly stopped working.
The difficult jobs. Still his favourite kind.
Ten minutes, no pitch — a direct conversation about what's actually in the way, and whether it's fixable. It usually is.
Book my free 10-minute call Or see the work first — a sample of what we build