Billionaires’ cash piles ‘immoral and unsustainable’: health products CEO
Wednesday, 4 March 2026
Abel Butler is the chief executive of online natural health product purveyor HealthPost, a business started at his mother’s kitchen table in Golden Bay back in the 1980s.
What was your most formative life experience?
My parents' divorce when I was five years old raised an incredibly complex set of emotions. I was just old enough to understand that it was the right thing for both of them (and for my sister and me), but having to choose who I would mainly live with and knowing that things would never be the same again was difficult. But we got there, and they remained very close friends and co-parents from then on.
Also, entering a relationship with my partner Lilani and her two young sons. A wise friend told me at the time: 'You realise it's not one but three whole relationships?' She was right, and the rewards have far outweighed any challenges along the way. The love, the learning, the constant patience, humour and friendship, and perhaps most of all, the deep and ever-growing understanding. Those three beautiful humans have taught me an enormous amount.
We haven't always been perfect parents, but we've role-modelled a lot of love and respect for one another, and hard work, and I'm pleased with that. Coming up 20 years this month, we are still learning to share with and enjoy each other in new ways.
Who is your most inspirational figure, and why?
My mother Linley. By the time I was a tween she had become my best friend, and remained so until she passed to the other side in December 2024, after many years of living with Parkinson's disease. Her own life had been so hard, and she had experienced terrible trauma as a teenager. While it infused her, and she struggled at times, she never let it define her. Linley was fiercely intelligent, wildly open-minded, unbelievably wise, and profoundly compassionate. She started HealthPost from our kitchen in Golden Bay in 1988 (barley grass and a photocopied catalogue) because she believed natural health should be accessible to everyone, not just people who lived near a specialist shop. She wasn't always right, but she always had her own take on things. I think I'll spend the rest of my life discovering all she taught and instilled within me.
Favourite book?
Impossible question, sorry! There are too many greats; however, I recently read Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning. There were the words on the page, then there was whatever was sitting behind the words. It’s hard to describe, but it's like it soaked into me and worked some deep magic at a near-metaphysical level. I haven't felt quite the same since; more grateful and accepting, less angsty and restless. It was life-altering.
As a leader, how would you address a toxic work culture?
I've learned that the surface assessment is rarely the full picture. The person causing the damage at work might be surviving something at home that nobody knows about. That doesn't excuse it, however, and there are clear red lines and things we absolutely won't tolerate. But feeling seen, heard, and understood can go a surprisingly long way before you reach for the bigger interventions. I try to move quickly but not rush to judgement. Be fair to the people being impacted, and fair to the person judged responsible. Both things, at the same time. People have to survive so much.
Hardest decision ever?
On a professional level, acquiring the Flora & Fauna and Nourished Life brands out of receivership in 2023. We'd looked up to these brands a lot: their vision, principles, strong founder-led ethos, and clear commitment to doing better for people and planet. They'd been acquired by a much larger corporate parent who collapsed the whole group with what looks, in hindsight, like an absurd level of hubris. It was our first and only acquisition to date. We had little experience and only about a week to do the entire due diligence. We had great advisers and worked around the clock during this time, but there was still an enormous amount of gut feel and instinct in the final call. We got it right, but it's been a huge haul to get these brands back on track.
Should billionaires exist?
They're a symptom, not a cause, but in short: no. Fewer than 60,000 people now hold three times more wealth than the poorest half of humanity owns. That's immoral and unsustainable, to put it as mildly as I possibly can. In saying this, I'm acutely aware of my own position of relative privilege, which has come in no small part as a result of inherent systemic advantages.
If I was a billionaire, I would…
Not be one for long. No one needs that much, and the concentration of that kind of wealth requires systems that fail other people. I'd redistribute it as fast as I responsibly could to people and organisations better placed to deploy it for systemic change. Contributing to human wellbeing and environmental restoration is far more motivating to me than extra bedrooms or a bigger boat.
What is the one thing that could happen in New Zealand tomorrow that would make life better for the most people?
A tax system that stops rewarding speculation over productive work. Start with a fair capital gains tax that excludes the family home.