Boss Life: How civil war shaped Oppo’s Morgan Halim

Wednesday, 8 October 2025

Morgan Halim says if he was a billionaire he’d make quality education accessible. “I believe this will solve many of the world's major problems by investing in future generations, who will be numerous and intelligent enough to continue finding new solutions.”

Morgan Halim serves as the managing director of mobile phone brand Oppo New Zealand, a position he has held since 2020.

What was your most formative life experience?

Migrating to New Zealand as a teen due to a civil war that broke out in Indonesia in 1998. Our family went from having a home and a life to losing almost everything. We had relatives in New Zealand who helped out during the first couple of years, but quickly, we had to stand on our own feet. I worked a couple of jobs as soon as I was able to after school and on the weekends just to ensure we had enough as a family to live, while still making finishing higher education a top priority. Looking back, I’ve always appreciated the journey I’ve been through that shaped who I am today as a person and am lucky to call New Zealand home now.

Who is your most inspirational figure, and why?

My parents. I was old enough to see the struggles and hardships they endured as adults with four children, when our circumstances changed overnight. Not once did they show us any vulnerabilities, and they were always dedicated to minimising the impact on us kids. From them, I learnt early to identify what’s important in life personally, and to distinguish what’s nice to have from what matters and should be prioritised.

Favourite book?

Dog Man by Dav Pilkey is a favourite of the Halim family.

It has to be Dog Man by Dav Pilkey. The only reading time I have is with my seven-year-old daughter before her bedtime these days, and it’s one of her favourite book series. It has everything from humour, action, and “Pilkosophy” (the author’s key message). One of our favourite messages is “Nobody's perfect. We are all works in progress. Trying is important. Make mistakes. Fail miserably.”

As a leader, how would you address a toxic work culture?

I have found that company values drive work culture. I would adjust the values to create a framework for our way of working that openly addresses expectations. If challenges come from an individual, you must act quickly and address them before they become contagious and give a false impression to others that it’s okay to act that way.

Hardest decision ever?

I haven’t yet faced a single life-changing decision, but one of the harder ones so far was deciding whether to downsize Oppo’s New Zealand team during the Covid-19 pandemic, after having launched here only three years prior. With the blessing and support of our shareholders, we decided to keep everyone and use the downtime to upgrade and improve our processes. It was one of the best decisions we made, as we had one of our best years-to-date following Covid, thanks to having people with retained IP and improved processes. We were away flying as soon as demand returned to the market.

Should billionaires exist?

I understand both points of view. On one hand, billionaires can show how innovation and entrepreneurship can lead to success, and some do give back through charity and philanthropy. On the other hand, having so much wealth concentrated in a few people raises questions about fairness and inequality. For me, it’s less about whether billionaires exist and more about making sure our systems are fair and that everyone has a chance to succeed and that extreme wealth should help to improve society.

A critical decision for Morgan Halim was, with the support of shareholders, to not massively downsize Oppo NZ during the Covid-19 shutdown, leading to one of the best years the company had.

If I was a billionaire, I would …

I want to make quality education accessible - I believe this will solve many of the world's major problems by investing in future generations, who will be numerous and intelligent enough to continue finding new solutions to all the upcoming challenges they face.

What is the one thing that could happen in New Zealand tomorrow that would make life better for most people?

Better infrastructure, like public transport, roads, another bridge in Auckland, and so on. Kiwis are generally hardworking people, but we are so bottlenecked and let down by the current state of our infrastructure across the country. Hopefully, there will be more long-term investments, similar to the government's UFB (Ultra-Fast Broadband) initiatives, which will future-proof our ability to grow as a country.

Bio: Morgan Halim serves as the managing director of mobile phone brand Oppo New Zealand, a position he has held since 2020. Having joined the company in 2018, Halim is based in Auckland and brings extensive experience in the consumer electronics and retail sectors. His expertise includes product strategy and management, operations, and driving organisational change.