Police asked to investigate New Zealander of the Year Sir Rod Drury

Thursday, 16 April 2026

Former Xero staffer Ally Naylor alleges unwanted sexual contact by the company’s then chief executive, New Zealander of the Year Sir Rod Drury, and has lodged a complaint with police. She says she will be interviewed by an officer next week. Drury doesn’t accept he’s done anything wrong, but has apologised for any “distress”. Paula Penfold reports.

Police have been asked to investigate tech founder and New Zealander of the Year Sir Rod Drury.

Former Xero IT project coordinator Ally Naylor alleges multiple instances of unwanted sexual contact by Drury at his apartment while he was the company’s CEO nearly a decade ago.

After learning last month that he’d been awarded the overall New Zealander of the Year title, Naylor decided to go public with her claims.

And now Stuff can reveal that last Friday she lodged a complaint with police. Police won’t confirm they’ve received a complaint, citing privacy. Naylor says she has since been contacted by an officer and will be interviewed next week.

On Wednesday, a Stuff investigation revealed Drury faced a misconduct complaint from Naylor in November 2017 which led to an internal investigation, the outcome of which has not been disclosed.

On Monday, asked about allegations of unwanted sexual contact, Drury said, “I don’t have any comment on that. I don’t think that’s the situation at all.”

Asked what the situation was, he said, “I’m not commenting on it. We had a pretty good culture, and always tried to look after people.”

Of Naylor in particular, he said, “I don’t really want to speak about her. It’s all, anything is private between people. And I think she was a great employee and a really good person.”

Told of the distress Naylor described as a result of what she said was unwanted sexual contact when he was her boss, Drury said he wasn’t aware of that.

“I would apologise … profusely. That certainly wasn’t my intention and not my understanding.”

On Wednesday evening, Drury had no response to the police complaint being laid.

A spokesperson said: “Rod spoke to you on Monday, and, given that, we have no further comment to make on the matters you have raised.”

Naylor began work at Xero in 2014 as a 29-year-old IT project coordinator.

Stuff can now reveal further details about what she alleges Drury did when she worked for him at what was known as Xero 2 in Wellington.

She said he gave her a key so she could manage the delivery of materials to an apartment he was building across the road.

“Everybody in my team knew about that at the time,” she claimed. “It wasn’t a secret thing, it just felt like a weird work assignment.”

She said once the apartment was finished, Drury invited her for dinner and made an unwanted advance, which she rejected.

She then began work on a different project which she said involved further interactions with Drury, some of which she alleges were organised at his apartment.

“Sometimes it was totally fine,” she said, “it was just a work meeting.”

She described other occasions where “advances would keep getting made”.

“Another time, he tried to come really close to me and started kissing me. His hand was all over my chest,” Naylor said.

“I remember trying to think, ‘get yourself out of the situation’. And I would try to dance around the issue a bit instead of just going, ‘Whoa, back the f… off’, which is what I would do now if somebody did that.”

She claimed that after one incident of unwanted sexual contact, “I ran to the bathroom and threw up because it’s just so disgusting”.

Naylor said as she was a junior employee and Drury was the CEO she felt unable to decline invitations to the apartment.

“How do you say no? I know now how you say no to that, but I didn't know how to say no at the time. And sometimes it was totally fine, it was just a work meeting.”

In November 2017, Naylor sent a formal complaint to the Xero board through the internal whistleblower process, describing what she said were multiple occasions where she claimed he behaved inappropriately towards her, leading to distress and ongoing impacts.

In the complaint, she wrote that she experienced the first instance of what progressed to unwanted sexual contact in April 2015, “when he said he liked my vibe, and kissed me on the mouth”.

“He also began to feel underneath my breasts. I froze and a few moments later said I couldn’t do this and left the apartment.”

She wrote that in the coming days, he apologised. But she claimed the advances continued until late 2016, where he would “repeat the same behaviour”. She said that happened on approximately five occasions.

“Throughout 2016 I would book out my calendar to make it look busy so I could say no to meeting up,” she wrote.

An internal investigation was launched at Xero as a result of Naylor’s complaint. The results have not been disclosed.

Naylor said she did not go to police at the time because she thought her formal workplace complaint would be enough to ensure accountability.

In a phone conversation with Stuff on Monday, asked why he invited women employees on their own to his apartment for business meetings, he said “That’s private business. I had lots of different friendships.”

He also disputed they were business meetings. “It’s a hard thing to answer. I always had lots and lots of friends.”

He said he understood the power imbalance in a CEO-employee relationship.

“I understand all of that,” he said. “But, you know, it’s a pretty fast-paced environment, and lots of amazing relationships with people at Xero, male and female. It was like we were all unified as a team, doing some amazing things. It was an incredible time.”

Drury did not respond to follow-up written questions from Stuff about the unwanted sexual conduct claimed by Naylor.

In response to a detailed list of questions from Stuff, Xero said in a statement on Tuesday that it appointed Maria Dew KC to undertake a review of the events surrounding Naylor’s complaint, and Xero’s response.

On Wednesday Stuff asked Xero for the terms of reference for the review, details of how it would be conducted, and whether the findings would be made public.

Xero said it had nothing further to add to its previous statement.

Also on Wednesday, the New Zealander of the Year awards office said it had contacted Drury.

“We recognise the seriousness of the issues raised and our responsibility is to ensure any matters are handled through our established process, with fairness to all parties,” a spokesperson said.