Mark Graham (diver)

Mark Graham
Medal record
Men's Diving
Representing  New Zealand
Commonwealth Games
1982 Brisbane diving: 1m springboard

Mark Graham was a New Zealand diver who won a bronze medal for New Zealand in the Men’s 3 m Springboard event at the 1982 Commonwealth Games. He also competed in the 1986 Commonwealth Games in Edinburgh, and was 13th after hitting the diving board with his hand during the event.

He competed at the 1984 Summer Olympics. He was 18th in the preliminaries for the springboard event (with 497.55 points) so did not qualify for the finals. He competed with a dislocating shoulder, and recovering from a broken rib after being assaulted in Long Beach during his preparations for the Olympics.

Mark attended Boston University on athletic scholarship where he studied Broadcast Journalism and Philosophy. On his return to Auckland, he completed a BA in Philosophy and Political Studies, including papers in Green Economics. He completed a Diploma of Business; Marketing while at TVNZ in 1994.

He has worked in advertising agencies and media companies for the past 25 years, including TVNZ, ACP Media, Young & Rubicam advertising, McCann Erickson advertising and more. Past clients include Chase Corporation, XTRA, Sky TV, Sun Direct and Royal Sun Alliance (now Vero) Insurance, Mazda, and Panasonic.

While at TVNZ, he became involved with interactive television projects as Manager – Direct Response and Interactive TV, and including one for Bluebird Potato Chips. At TVNZ he produced several of the very first fully interactive TVCs in the world, he was initiator and project manager of the first website in New Zealand (and possibly the world) with realtime insurance quotes for Sun Direct Insurance and was a critical part of the team that pitched and won the direct response work from Telecom’s XTRA during its launch.

He was Account Director in the team that won the Direct Marketing Association’s (DMA) Grand Prix prize for the Sun Direct campaign and was instrumental in Sun Direct winning the Retail Marketing Award at the TVNZ/Marketing Magazine Awards in 1996, and three bronze medals at the following year’s DMA Direct Marketing Awards.

After leaving advertising, he was General Manager of Dow Communications, a small publishing company, for six years, turning around failing titles, Grocers’ Review and Conventions New Zealand Planner, and launching new titles: HortSource, experience magazine (a Senior’s publication on behalf of MetLifeCare), and associated websites. He has done project work for the Ministry of Tourism, Ministry of Economic Development, HuntGlobal/Ahipara, Tourism Dunedin, and Destination Lake Taupo. In 2006/7 he took a leading role in the successful launch of the Marlborough Convention Centre on contract for the Sales and Marketing of the new venue in its first year of operation.

Mark also consults to the Home Owners and Buyers Association (HOBANZ) – an organisation that is an advocate and educator for homeowners on home-related issues – as their Communications Manager, and has had a radio show on George FM for the past eight years, where he conducted interviews on current affairs, arts and ideas.

He was part of the team that brought the Digital Earth international conference to New Zealand in 2006 – a conference concerned with the use of digital technologies in planning and for dissemination of knowledge on the natural and built landscape, and is closely involved in community enhancement work in Auckland, having been a Trustee of Artworks on Waiheke Island and Chairperson for the Waiheke Island Cinema Trust, which brought a community cinema to the Island in the early 2000s. He is currently working with Ngati Whatua on developing a Centre of Maori and Pacific Island Culture (KIWA) to be based in downtown Auckland and is a Trustee for the Foundation for Social Responsibility New Zealand (Fostr.org.nz).

He wrote a restaurant guide to Auckland in 2000 – Rough Guide: Auckland Restaurants, and has also been involved with numerous other publications and websites. Mark’s uncle is Sir Douglas Graham, Minister of Justice and Minister of Treaty Negotiations in the National Government in the early 1990s and another uncle, Dr Kennedy Graham, is currently a Green Party Member of Parliament and ex-Secretary General of Parliamentarians for Global Action and a number of UN-attached NGOs.

References

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