About Daniel Keys
Born:
Daniel was born at St Helen’s Hospital in Wellington on 15th November 1973.
Family:
His parents, David and Alison Keys were, at that time living in Plimmerton – a seaside suburb north of Wellington.
Daniel has two brothers. Matthew is two years older than Daniel and Elliot is 3 years younger.
Daniel was much loved by his extended family – particularly Harry and Ethel (David’s parents) and Uncle Peter (David’s brother) on David’s side and Ian (Gunka) and Katherine (Alison’s parents) and Deborah, Margot and Joanna; (Alison’s sisters) when they variously lived in or visited the Wellington area.
Daniel progressed among a peer group of toddlers centered mainly on the local Playcentre (a cooperative pre-school).
Plimmerton is a very special community with wide ranges of age, social and financial background – always stimulating.
From a very early age it was clear that Daniel had a strong and determined personality and was intelligent and had an inquiring mind.
Education:
Daniel went from Playcentre to Plimmerton School where he stayed until 1984 when I)avid & Alison transferred back to Auckland (where David was born).
The family re-settled in Epsom and I)aniel attended Manukau Intermediate School.
When the time came for Daniel to attend secondary school the issue arose as to whether Daniel would attend:
(a) Auckland Grammar School where David attended
(b) St Kentigern College where Alison’s dad taught
(c) The local school – Onehunga High School where Matt was already attending.
After discussions it was decided that Daniel would attend Onehunga High School (OHS) – a decision which had a major positive impact on Daniel’s development. Onehunga High School is a multi-cultural coeducational state school. OHS highly values inter-personal respect and ethnic and social equality.
Daniel did well academically, in sport and in all parts of the school’s life. He was:
(a) Captain of the first rugby XV (as prop) – Ile was big strong lad as we all know
(b) Head Prefect
(c) An A bursary graduate.
Daniel thought carefully about tertiary education and decided to pursue a business career and choose a Bachelor of Commerce at Auckland University majoring in finance and strategic planning. He graduated from University of Auckland in 1996.
Interests:
Daniel went on Spirit of New Zealand and in his first year at University Daniel attended Outward Bound – a life developing program based on group outdoor survival. This was another life development milestone for Daniel. His peer and management review showed him to be a natural leader but at the same time someone who would passionately defend the underdog.
During his university days Daniel continued with his sporting interests. He played senior rugby for Carlton. Ile was NZ’s youngest PADI scuba diving graduate. Ile learned to fly and obtained his private pilot’s license.
Career:
He worked initially for Lion Breweries – Australasia’s largest brewery. He was based in Auckland in the Finance team as the Operations Accountants. He-& then transferred down to Wellington where he worked firstly as the Field Marketing Executive, then as a key member of the Wellington Sales Team leading new business development.
It was there that he met Daina who also worked for Lion Breweries.
Looking for the next challenge Daniel then moved to work for Armourguard a NZ division of Tyco – a huge US building services corporation. Here he focussed on financial management.
Overseas:
Daniel and Daina planned to travel overseas and fulfilled this plan in 19969 when they left New Zealand and travelled via Canada to London. They met up with many of their peers who lived and worked in London.
Daniel contracted initially for Blockbuster, moving on to Guinness and the on to Med-Scape (an E-Commerce start-up company) Ghee-Guinness and finally Sainsbury’s. His working interests moved from finance to strategic pIanning.
Daina and Daniel travelled within Europe at various time during the last two years. In June/July 2000 the Keys family (from NZ and UK) including Daina travelled through Greece, Italy and France.