Founding Principles: A Conversation with Luke Harwood

What inspired the creation of ACTIVIST?

At the time, ACTIVIST was started from a place of challenge and renewal but also inspiration.

One early morning in the spring of 2015 I had a spiritual vision which came to me clearly and was the catalyst for ACTIVIST. I was coming to the end of a decade working in fashion and Gabrielle was really unwell and struggling with her health at the time. We relocated back to New Zealand for a year and lived on our piece of land on the Coromandel Peninsula.

I was beginning to think about a new chapter and beginning to think about all my interests and needs; lifestyle, passion for New Zealand and conservation and wanting to build a brand in the natural world with limited industrial impact. Potentially it would be able to offer a way for me to use my gifts, as well as make a living for my family in a wholesome way.

How has the vision for ACTIVIST evolved since those early days?

Our focus is always on quality and upholding genuine likeminded relationships. Those are two fundamentals which will always endure and have allowed us to evolve since the beginning. I would say the evolution has been through new friends who become like family and share our brand and so we have a beautiful global community which continues to grow. We are forever grateful to everyone who has supported us and allowed us to evolve into the business we are today.

The name ACTIVIST is bold and intentional. What does it mean to you now?

I grew up in a small surfing/fishing town on the east-coast of New Zealand. There was a local surfer/shaper who mentored me through my teenage years. He was such an activist without calling himself one. Just really vocal about no mining in the area and protecting our waterways and coastlines. There are a lot of great New Zealanders like that. So I had the simple teachings of preservation clearly engrained in me at a young age through the joyful adventures of surfing and someone I looked up to.

At the time of thinking about putting ACTIVIST together in 2015, the majority of Mānuka Honey brands felt extremely stale and commoditized at the product end, which I thought was a shame for something so beautiful and labour intensive.

For a name I wanted something that was really jarring and primal, sort of like a punk band or an intentional bumper sticker, but also related back to a lot of good things in my upbringing around living simply and enjoying the coastlines which inherently is the magic of New Zealand's landscapes and the origin of the Mānuka tree.

We see ACTIVIST as the steward for upholding and presenting premium Mānuka Honey on a world stage at the luxury end.

What inspires you? Are there particular practices, places, or philosophies that are grounding or energizing you right now?

Contentment is really important to me. Thankfulness and simplicity give me a sense of something far larger from a divine point of view and in that moment it's a wonderful place and leads to the genuine inspiration for life.

How do your lifestyle and personal values influence the way you run the business?

I think it’s important to have clear objectives for a business at an early stage, like what the motivation is?

A business can be so much more than putting products or innovation into the world or making financial gains if you are willing to define those objectives. For Gabrielle and I we had very idealist values for our business and those have been the guiding stars and truly allowed for our business to be an extension of our lifestyle and influencing the decisions we make along the journey.

As founders, you’re also partners in life. What’s it like to build a company as a wife and husband?

We have all been blessed with unique gifts. Fortunately, Gabrielle and I have completely different skill sets, so we rarely cross paths. But we share the same vision and understanding of our business. It doesn’t work for everyone, but for us it’s a beautiful thing. It flows naturally and fits around our family and lifestyle.

What’s your approach to developing new products?

When Gabrielle and I look at new products, it’s very much a singular focus. Like we never go into it with the idea that we are going to create a line of curated products.

It always just comes from a simple place “we need this in our life or in our family, I would really like to make this into a product”. So the ACTIVIST brand is really around products created from a genuine place of need. Our company probably feels slightly disconnected as a product portfolio, but we like that because it's more of a brand experience and discovery around the core of Mānuka.

What excites you most about the connection between honey and skincare?

Well I think honey is really beautiful, I love those primitive things like coffee, wine, olive oil, honey. Those are all like gifts from God that exist without us, so to speak.

So to work with Mānuka Honey is nothing egotistical, it’s very humble but beautiful, but there are some exceptional benefits for topical use so it has been nice to naturally evolve Mānuka Honey and Mānuka Oil into Activated Mānuka Skincare products (A.M.S).

What qualities must every ACTIVIST product have—no matter what?

Exquisitely crafted with a passion to exist.

What does building an authentic brand mean to you?

Clarity in the intent. There are no short cuts … it's a long game to build a wonderful brand independently.

I would also say all the mistakes and mishaps along the journey add valued character and personality to a brand, something that can be often overlooked these days with everything becoming so formulaic and curated.

Are there any guiding principles or values that help you make decisions as the brand grows?

Give Freely.