Douglas Myers was born in Auckland in 1938, the son of Kenneth and Margaret Myers. Kenneth’s family had lived for generations in the area around Poznan, now in West Poland, but then in Prussia. His great grandfather came to New Zealand in the 1860s by way of the Australian gold-fields and joined a small Jewish community in their new country.
Kenneth’s grandmother was from the Ehrenfried family, a Jewish family of Hamburg, Germany. By contrast, Margaret Myers (nee Pirie) was born in Canada although she was raised in Costa Rica. Kenneth and Margaret lived in the eastern outer-reaches of Auckland, overlooking the Tamaki estuary.
After schooling at Auckland’s King’s College, Douglas followed in his father’s footsteps and went to Caius College at Cambridge University. He stayed abroad for four years after graduating and was reluctantly drawn home in late 1965 to work with his father in the family hospitality business, Campbell & Ehrenfried.
Following several years of restlessness Douglas Myers developed an ambition to succeed in business not seen in the family since great uncle Louis Ehrenfried’s pioneering days.
Read more: Paul Goldsmith on Sir Douglas Myers – Business – NZ Herald News
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