Nick White

Nick is an inspirational human and motivational speaker and a cancer survivor. He lost half his tongue from head and neck cancer in 2009, a type of cancer with a 50% chance of surviving more than five years.

He’s had the works- surgery, radiation and chemo, and considers himself fortunate that he came under the care of Dr Swee Tan, a head and neck cancer specialist and Founder and Board Chair of the Gillies McIndoe Research Institute. He was offered surgery immediately and is happy he didn’t have much time to dwell on it. He also treasures his then-boss at Phil&Teds, CEO Campbell Gower’s reaction, that he would always have a job to come back to, no matter what the outcome.

Muscle was taken from his upper arm and used to replace neck glands and a big part of his tongue. He lost his ability to speak and had to be trained on how to do that again, with speech language and voice therapy.

Five years on from his treatment, in 2014, Nick entered the Mt Fuji Summit Race in Japan, one of the hardest mountain races in the world. He did this as a way to thank Dr Tan and his multidisciplinary medical team from Wellington’s Blood & Cancer Centre – and to support the work the Gillies McIndoe Research Institute is doing in treatments for cancer. Moreover, after conquering the summit, in a show and tell covering his cancer experience and the Mt Fuji run, he was joined by Dr Tan at a fundraiser at the City Gallery in late 2014. An experience, he humbly says, was one of his proudest days. He also quietly stands alongside other cancer survivors helping to empower them.

Nick was proud to become an Ambassador in 2021. Later that year, he was diagnosed with a second recurrence of head and neck cancer, requiring further life-saving surgery to remove part of his jaw, and replace part of his palate with a muscle from his other arm - which left him with further difficulty speaking and unable to swallow food. 

Despite these difficulties he continues to be a mountain runner, training on solely liquid nutrition to successfully complete challenges such as the ‘Ring of Fire’ – a 73-kilometre ultra marathon around Mt Ruapehu. Nick continues to speak publicly at events to raise awareness and funding support for the work of the Gillies McIndoe Research Institute, in the search for better ways to treat cancer.

Nick is married to Maree, and they have a daughter and live in Paekakariki. In addition to being an Ambassador for the Gillies McIndoe Research Institute, he is also an active volunteer for the NZ Cancer Society’s Cancer Connect Programme, which connects people with similar cancer experiences for support, and is an ambassador for the Pinc & Steel Cancer Rehabilitation Programme.