After following his older brother into Retail at an early age, Wayne Garrity caught the retail 'bug'!

What did you want to do career-wise when you left school?

I always had a desire to be in Retail from an early age. My brother was a little older than me and was working for a TV and Video retailer where I helped out on Saturdays and that gave me the bug!

Tell us about your career to date.

I’ve had a very varied retail journey from selling TVs to Pencils and now Farm and infrastructure products. Starting at aged 15, three days after leaving school I ventured into retail which took me through the ranks up to managing my first retail store at the age of 18. I then moved to bigger and better stores with higher foot traffic and more expectations until we moved to NZ in 2009.

After five years at Dick Smith I moved again up to New Zealand’s largest store in Manukau before becoming the Northern area Regional Manager covering 15 stores from Sylvia Park to Keri Keri.

When the time came for a change, I decided Stationary was my next destination. I was lucky enough to open the Sylvia Park store in Auckland for Warehouse Stationary, taking that from an unknown (first major mall store) trial to a massive success - smashing forecasts from day one. In my 3 years there I also was relief Regional Manager for nine months. The next challenge was to move across the Warehouse Group to Noel Leeming. The Pukekohe store had been going through a bit of a tough time for different reasons, so I undertook taking that store back to its earlier successes. I worked there for just over six years with some great successes before my current role at Farmland Pukekohe.

What led you to Farmlands? 

I had a conversation with a couple of people that I had known previously that now work at Farmlands and they told me how great they had found working for this business, that is is people focused, and there is a real team atmosphere with clear goals for success.

How have you grown in your time with us at Farmlands? 

Obviously there is a different market and product range than I have been used too, so getting my head around our product range has been my biggest challenge. 

What have been your key achievements / what are you most proud of at Farmlands? 

Getting to know the business has been my main goal and I feel I now understand better how we work and where we want to be. I most enjoy working with a great group of people with a clear but honest desire to be winners.

What would your advice be for someone who's interested in a career in your area at Farmlands? 

From my own experience I would advise any new team member to just ask questions! There are no stupid questions. If you don't know, you don't know but the team at Farmlands want to be a winner for our shareholders and customers so there will always be someone with the answers.

Interested in what we offer in the Retail space?

Check out our Retail page and Retail Apprenticeship page for more details.

Interested in working with Wayne in our Retail Team?

Connect with us on our careers site or check out our current vacancies.