Maxine Horne

Maxine Horne's Biography

Maxine Horne has walked the long road to success. She is the co-founder and CEO of the listed Vita Group – Australia’s most exciting communications, computing and electronics provider.

Maxine’s journey to Australian corporate leadership was sparked by a comment from a friend.

Maxine was pointing out that Australians could not buy mobile phones in shopping centres. A friend said: “If you know so much about it, why don’t you do something about it?” So, Maxine opened a shop at the Gold Coast’s Pacific Fair shopping centre. Two decades later, that first Fone Zone shop has become Vita Group and the co-founder of the start-up is now the CEO of its listed company.

Along the way, Maxine has been a wife, and a mother to two children – both of whom crawled the floors of her workplace as Maxine became a working mum. Maxine’s story is one of learning lessons: “I’ve made mistakes – some of them expensive – but falling down is part of life. Getting up is what life’s about.”

And it all started in the UK, where Maxine was raised by grandparents and a father who made the most of their limited resources. They provided Maxine with life advice that still guides her today, reminding her to Think Smart, Run Hard.

In the last 20 years of building her business to what it is today – Maxine has seen the ups and downs of the retail sector, and has weathered the storms of the telecommunications and computing industries. She’s learnt about business from the ground up and, and it’s this wealth of knowledge and experience that has made her a multi-award winning business leader. This business acumen has created one of Australia’s fastest growing companies, listed for four consecutive years in BRW’s Fast 100.

At the heart of Maxine’s philosophy is the power of human capital, and how to harness this ‘people power’ into results. She insists on putting her vision (people first) and values into action, and this has firmly placed the many Vita Group brands as some of Australia’s most successful businesses and a progressive employer of choice.

Maxine’s creation of award-winning team member and customer service programs has underpinned the success of Vita Group as a business leader. She provides intensive customer service training for staff, as well as incentives and a rewarding internal career path. Maxine drives her team to be the best they can be, personally and professionally – and she provides the culture and systems to achieve this. She knows from experience that creating the right culture in the business will drive an exceptional experience for customers.

Maxine’s presentations are energetic, insightful, thought-provoking and delivered with the laughter that has characterised Maxine’s corporate career.