Mike was born and raised in Dunedin and is the great grandson of James Speight of Speight's Brewery. Since 1997 Mike has lived and worked abroad, in the UK and now in Australia where he currently runs his own financial services company (Fusion Finance).

Mike has long felt the need for New Zealand to have its own unique flag and his design is the culmination of his experiences at home and abroad. "After watching so many sporting occasions in the past eight years, where the commentators have got our flag confused with other countries, I knew something had to change."

Many New Zealanders don't understand the significance, or the impact that having a flag so closely aligned to Australia's has on New Zealand, as this is something that is often only clearly experienced from abroad.

While looking around at what other solutions were being offered, Mike found that he did not identify with any of them so felt compelled to put up or shut up and started the process of designing his vision.

If you would like to download a detailed explanation of the design in pdf form you can do so by clicking here or on the flag.
Additionally if you would like to contact Mike you can drop him a line from the contact page.