Scott Smith Email & Phone Number

Tēnā koutou katoaKo te Toiokawharu te maungaKo whanganui te awaNō Tāmaki Makaurau ahauNō Scotland ōku tupunaKei Tamahere ahau e noho anaKo Scott tōku ingoaKo Helen tāku wahineKo Noah tāku tamaKo Nanook tāku kuriTihei Mauri ora!/ Tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, koutou katoaSo many stories I have heard over the last 20+ years, of how people began working in the natural healthcare industry because of a health crisis they experienced. For me it was no different. I was born with a hereditary kidney disease that came to its ultimate conclusion leaving me needing daily dialysis to keep me alive when I was only 25. Graduating as a Medical Herbalist and Naturopath 4 years later still seems incredible to me when I reflect on it that I survived those years let alone complete my training. I had been through two kidney transplants and more operations, complications and months spent on hospital wards that I would care to admit to here. But I did & I came out feeling incredibly determined, focused & finally felt like my calling had been found. I was super passionate about the incredible knowledge I had learnt & continued to learn about these amazing plants that had so many wonderful things to offer us. My love for the rākau/plants of Aotearoa/New Zealand has really followed me all of my life but now empowered with knowledge that was helped along by some wonderful teachers, helped it become a real passion. When I started running my clinic, the natives began to be implemented into my treatments & many of the cases I saw during this time ended up evolving into some of the early ŌKU formulas that were released. I started ŌKU back in 2009 when Helen & I would run Farmers Markets at the weekend while still working full time. This was just the beginning though and it has been a long hīkoi/journey that is still continuing today around making sure we are still doing things the right way, still giving back and still planting. Building the business up over more than 10 years with a very small team has been a labour of love & one that without the passion I have for what we do would have seen the business fail many times over. But we have kept at it & through many lessons learnt, challenges overcome & much perseverance we have made ŌKU into what it is today. In 2022 we now have an export footprint into Australia & China, also an R&D footprint where we are doing some very interesting research into some of the natives. We seek to both validate traditional use & build upon them to discover new ways these incredible plants can be used to help people today.

Listed skills include Strategic Planning, Marketing Strategy, Business Strategy, Product Development, and 9 others.