Hamish Pinkham
Roles: Speaker
Themes: Business, Innovation
Hamish Pinkham is the co-founder and director of Rhythm and Vines, one of New Zealand's most iconic live music festivals, and one of its great entrepreneurial origin stories. In 2003, Hamish and two University of Otago flat mates decided to throw a New Year's party in a Gisborne vineyard.
Around 1,800 people showed up. What followed was years of creative ambition, hard lessons, relentless problem-solving, and the kind of tenacity that turns a good idea into something lasting. Rhythm and Vines grew to attract crowds of more than 30,000 and became a fixture on the international festival calendar, not by accident, but through grit, vision, and an unwillingness to quit when things got hard.
Since then, Hamish has continued shaping New Zealand's live events landscape. He launched sister festival Rhythm and Alps in Wānaka, built Endeavour Live to produce major music events and international tours, and founded the Phoenix Summit, a one-day gathering of creative leaders and innovators.
A qualified lawyer and musician, he brings both commercial sharpness and genuine creative instinct to everything he does. On stage, Hamish shares honest, practical lessons from the coalface of building something from nothing, covering entrepreneurship, creative risk-taking, resilience through real adversity, and what it takes to create experiences that truly connect people.
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From Concept to Launch
Unlocking Creative Potential
Resilience and Tenacity
The Art of a Successful Exit
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From Flatmates to Festival. In 2003, Hamish Pinkham and two university flatmates threw a party in a Gisborne vineyard. Eighteen hundred people later, that party had a name — Rhythm and Vines. In this keynote, Hamish unpacks the messy, exhilarating reality of taking a raw idea and making it real: finding the courage to leap before you feel ready, holding your nerve when others doubt you, and knowing when to seek out the mentors who've been where you're trying to go. Honest, practical, and grounded in lived experience.
Key Takeaways:
How to back yourself and take the leap — even without a perfect plan
Strategies for dealing with doubt — from others and from yourself
How to find, use, and become a mentor at the right moments
The mindset shifts that separate people who start from people who finish
