Murray Thom left school at 15 with no qualifications. By the age of 23 he was became Managing Director of CBS Records, the youngest Managing Director of that group in the world.
The name Murray Thom is synonomous with success.
With a strong desire to be self-employed he left the corporate life 23 years ago to “have a go" on his own. He founded and owned Personalised Plates in 1987 and at its height, during Murray’s ownership, had a turnover of $30 million annually and a staff of 60. In 1997 he sold that company to pursue his real passion, the music business.
He now manages his own boutique record company, Thom Music, producing many best selling albums including Carl Doy’s Piano by Candlelight, Martin Winch’s Espresso Guitar, and albums by Margaret Urlich, Rob Guest and Dave Dobbyn. The company has enjoyed great success and two of his recent productions: ‘Together’ and ‘Miracle’ have both featured on the Oprah Winfrey show. The 'Together' 10 CD Collection was named as Oprah’s "Favorite Thing of the Year" and another show featured ‘Miracle’, a collaboration with Celine Dion and photographer Anne Geddes. His most recent creation, The Great New Zealand Songbook includes two CD’s featuring selections of the best New Zealand music of the Last Century and This Century. Forty of New Zealand’s favourite recording artists including Split Enz, Dave Dobbyn, Neil Finn, Opshop, Bic Runga, Brooke Fraser and many more have contributed handwritten lyrics, photos and memorabilia, in their own double page spreads. The iconic cover art of ‘Charlie, The Four Square Man’ holding a guitar is an original work by acclaimed New Zealand artist Dick Frizzell and was commissioned specifically for this release.
Even greater success has come recently with the Great New Zealand Cookbook which has spent 100 weeks on the NZ Best Sellers List, including 10 weeks at Number 1. It also won an award at the Gourmand World Cookbook awards in 2015.
Murray’s other passion is sailing. Both he and his older brother Barry went on to win national titles sailing Lasers and Finns. Murray has also represented New Zealand and in 2005, he won the World Laser Masters championship in Brazil.
Murray Thom has featured on Documentary New Zealand’s “the Midas Touch". He made ‘NZ Business’ magazine’s Top 10 Entrepreneurs of the Decade, and featured in ‘Management’ magazine’s cover story on Leadership.
