{"id":417597,"date":"2026-05-08T07:17:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-08T07:17:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/417597\/"},"modified":"2026-05-08T07:17:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-08T07:17:08","slug":"sir-rod-drury-returns-new-zealander-of-the-year-award","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/417597\/","title":{"rendered":"Sir Rod Drury returns New Zealander of the Year award"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"body-paragraph articleLinkText  [&amp;_p]:tit-sub-xl tit-sub-xl md:[&amp;_p]:d-tit-sub-xl md:d-tit-sub-xl mb-[1.3rem]\">Xero founder Sir Rod Drury has returned his 2026 New Zealander of the Year award, a spokesperson confirmed today. <\/p>\n<p class=\"body-paragraph articleLinkText  lg mb-4\">Sir Rod was knighted in the 2026 New Year Honours and was awarded New Zealander of the Year in March. <\/p>\n<p class=\"body-paragraph articleLinkText  lg mb-4\">The New Zealander of the Year Awards Office confirmed on Friday that Drury had &#8220;returned the award&#8221; following discussions. <\/p>\n<p class=\"body-paragraph articleLinkText  lg mb-4\">&#8220;The New Zealander of the Year Awards exist to celebrate those whose contributions strengthen Aotearoa New Zealand and reflect the values of leadership, service, integrity and respect for others,&#8221; the office said in a statement. <\/p>\n<p class=\"body-paragraph articleLinkText  lg mb-4\">&#8220;Any matter that undermines or calls into question those values is not consistent with the standards and expectations we hold for the Awards programme.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"body-paragraph articleLinkText  lg mb-4\">The office said the 2026 New Zealander of the Year Award will not be re-awarded.<\/p>\n<p class=\"body-paragraph articleLinkText  lg mb-4\">Stuff has reported that three former Xero staffers made complaints against Drury, alleging unwanted physical contact. <\/p>\n<p class=\"body-paragraph articleLinkText  lg mb-4\">Drury has denied the allegations, saying he &#8220;always tries to be open and honest&#8221; and all his relationships were &#8220;consensual and mutual&#8221;. <\/p>\n<p class=\"body-paragraph articleLinkText  lg mb-4\">Drury founded Xero in 2006 and was the company&#8217;s chief executive <a href=\"https:\/\/www.1news.co.nz\/2018\/03\/04\/rod-drury-stepping-down-as-head-of-kiwi-accounting-software-giant-xero\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">until 2018.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Xero founder Sir Rod Drury has returned his 2026 New Zealander of the Year award, a spokesperson confirmed&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":417598,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[138,42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-417597","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-business","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417597","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=417597"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417597\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/417598"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=417597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=417597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=417597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}