As published in the New Zealand Herald:

Longtime financial and climate journalist Rod Oram was much loved and respected in the local business and media community.

Oram, who was a journalist for more than 40 years, died on Tuesday afternoon, after having a heart attack while cycling last weekend.

He was the inaugural editor of the Business Herald when it was launched as a distinct unit in 1997.

Born in the United Kingdom, Oram spent 20 years as an international financial journalist in Europe and North America, and travelled extensively in those continents and in Asia.

From 1975 to 1979, he held various journalist positions in Canada and from 1979, until joining the New Zealand Herald, he held a variety of posts at the Financial Times in London and New York City.

Fran O’Sullivan, NZME’s senior business correspondent and a longtime colleague and friend of Oram, recalled his passion for his work.

“I first met Rod Oram when I travelled to London on a Foreign and Commonwealth Office scholarship in the early 1990s. I was then editor of National Business Review – he was city editor at the Financial Times,” she recalled.

“His bubbling enthusiasm was contagious – right from the start. I like to think I also excited him with the derring-do that was possible in New Zealand business journalism at that time; particularly on the investigative front.

“We next met when Ivan Fallon was headhunting business journalists to join Wilson and Horton (predecessor of NZME) to launch the Business Herald. Rod set out to create the Business Herald as – what he used to call – a ‘beacon of hope’ for top-notch journalism in New Zealand.

“I will never forget his opening gambit – ‘well hello” – down the phone, as he navigated the frustrations of leading a team within a general newspaper environment as opposed to a dedicated financial newspaper.

“He ultimately left the Herald and became a brand in his own right – specialising in particular in the climate sphere.

“But he never lost that contagious enthusiasm – whether it was talking about his plan to reach 100 (sadly not to be); his great bike adventures across central Asia, travelling to the COP meetings under his own steam or talking about the family he cherished. Agree with him or not, he is a great loss to civil discourse in this country. He will be missed.”