Sam Morgan (born 1975) is best known as the founder of

Trade Me Trade Me is New Zealand's largest online auction and classifieds website. Managed by Trade Me Ltd., the site was founded in 1999 by New Zealand entrepreneur Sam Morgan (entrepreneur), Sam Morgan, who sold it to John Fairfax Holdings, Fairfax in ...

, New Zealand's largest

online auction An online auction (also electronic auction, e-auction, virtual auction, or eAuction) is an auction held over the internet and accessed by internet connected devices. Similar to in-person auctions, online auctions come in a variety of types, with ...

site, which he sold in 2006 to Australian media company Fairfax for over NZ$700 million.

Personal history

Morgan grew up in

Wellington Wellington is the capital city of New Zealand. It is located at the south-western tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Remutaka Range. Wellington is the third-largest city in New Zealand (second largest in the North Island ...

, New Zealand, with his father

economist An economist is a professional and practitioner in the social sciences, social science discipline of economics. The individual may also study, develop, and apply theories and concepts from economics and write about economic policy. Within this ...

Gareth Morgan and mother Jo Morgan a local bus driver. He attended Newtown School,

Rongotai College Rongotai College is a state single-sex boys' secondary school in the southeastern suburb of Rongotai, Wellington, New Zealand. Serving Years 9 to 13 (ages 12 to 18), the school has students as of . About 55 percent of the students are of Eu ...

and

Victoria University of Wellington Victoria University of Wellington (), also known by its shorter names "VUW" or "Vic", is a public university, public research university in Wellington, New Zealand. It was established in 1897 by Act of New Zealand Parliament, Parliament, and w ...

before opting out in 1995.

Professional history

Morgan worked for IT consultancy

Deloitte Deloitte is a multinational professional services network based in London, United Kingdom. It is the largest professional services network in the world by revenue and number of employees, and is one of the Big Four accounting firms, along wi ...

before leaving to start up

in 1999. Trade Me kept him very busy and at one point he was living 200 metres from the main office on Wellington Waterfront. On March 6, 2006,

John Fairfax Holdings Fairfax Media was a media company in Australia and New Zealand, with investments in newspaper, magazines, radio and digital properties. The company was founded by John Fairfax as John Fairfax and Sons, who purchased ''The Sydney Morning Herald' ...

agreed to buy Trade Me for NZ$700 million, plus another NZ$50 million if financial targets were met over the next two years. Sam Morgan received $227 million (excluding future bonuses), making him one of the richest people in New Zealand overnight. Morgan is now an investor and advisor to a number of start-up businesses and is also involved with several not-for-profit organisations including Medicine Mondiale and

One Acre Fund One Acre Fund is a social enterprise that supplies smallholder farmers in East Africa with asset-based financing and agriculture training services to reduce hunger and poverty. Headquartered in Kakamega, Kenya, the organization works with farmers ...

. He was a co-founder of the Pacific Fibre project, and majority owner and chairman of vWorkApp, a cloud-based dispatch and scheduling product. He is a director of

Xero (software) Xero Limited is a New Zealand technology company that provides cloud-based accounting software for small businesses. The company has offices in New Zealand, Australia, the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, South Africa and Singapore. X ...

and

Vend (software) Vend is cloud-based point-of-sale and retail management software company, based in Auckland, New Zealand. The company was founded in 2010 by Vaughan Rowsell. It was acquired by the Australian software company Kounta. History of Vend Vend w ...

. In 2010 Morgan was awarded an Honorary Fellowship of the

New Zealand Computer Society The Institute of IT Professionals (ITPNZ) is a non-profit incorporated society in New Zealand. As New Zealand's ICT professional body, the IITP exists to promote education and ensure a high level of professional practice amongst ICT professiona ...

(HFNZCS).

Philanthropy

In 2006, following the sale of Trade Me, Morgan founded and endowed Jasmine Social Investments, a

private foundation A private foundation is a Tax exemption, tax-exempt organization that does not rely on broad public support and generally claims to serve humanitarian purposes. Unlike a Foundation (nonprofit), charitable foundation, a private foundation does no ...

focused on high impact philanthropy. As at 2014, he had around 20 philanthropic projects, a number of them focused on alleviating the effects of poverty.

References

External links

TradeMe.co.nz
''DominionPost'' 13 September 2004
Sam Morgan - the boy's done good
NZ Herald article on the sale of TradeMe {{DEFAULTSORT:Morgan, Sam 1975 births Living people New Zealand businesspeople People educated at Rongotai College