Life at full throttle for Maxnet’s John Hanna

After 30 years, the adventure-loving CEO is still excited by technology

By Hamish Barwick, Auckland | Friday, 04 June 2010
Maxnet CEO John Hanna originally trained as a electrical engineer and says he initially had no interest in joining the IT industry. He may not have ended up in technology if it hadn’t been for the influence of a friend who made more money as a result of joining the sector.

Hanna began work at the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research in 1977, in the area of alternative energy sources such as solar heating.

“A good buddy of mine who had the same training as me was making more money working for Data General and encouraged me to join the industry. I said I wasn’t interested in IT as I didn’t think it was going anywhere.”

But eventually the lure of doubling his income was too much to resist and he joined a company called PerkinElmer Data Systems in 1981, as an onsite engineer. The company provided the career path for him to switch to sales six years on, with Hanna saying the problem solving skills he gained as an engineer can be equally applied in sales.

“In engineering people are always calling you when they have a problem and they don’t like you because you represent the company that has caused the problem. Working in sales, problem solving is really positive because you get to make a lot of money out of it and people are always rapt when they buy something new.”

When he is not solving business problems, Hanna seeks out thrills in two sports - motorcycling and polo.

He has been riding motorbikes since he was 14 and has competed for the past four years at tracks including Taupo, Hampton Downs, Manfeild and Pukekohe.

“I race a 600cc motorbike in Formula Two and Supersport. I just love adrenalin and it doesn’t get any better than going through the kink at Pukekohe travelling at 290 kilometres per hour.”

Hanna started playing polo 14 years ago on a dare. “I was in conversation with a buddy of mine and we were talking about things that scared us. He said polo would scare me because you’ve got eight animals on a field and eight guys with huge egos that are all very competitive. A horse has a brain the size of a pea and is afraid of everything. It is played at high speed and yes, it scared me.”