Mark Verbiest is chairman of the board of directors of Telecom and Transpower and is also a trustee of Wellington's New Zealand Festival.
Mr Verbiest told the Otago Daily Times recently he had been visiting Wanaka for about 35 years, had owned a house in the town for about 10 years and he and wife Sally moved permanently from Wellington over a year ago.
He recently accepted an invitation from festival board chairwoman Hetty Van Hale to join the board.
The week-long, biennial festival includes theatre, music, dance and the visual arts and will next be held in April 2015.
Mr Verbiest noted it had become more difficult for arts events to get sponsorship from corporations because it was hard to show ''tangible benefits for shareholders beyond the feel-good factor''.
He did not believe Telecom and Transpower would decide to help the Festival of Colour financially simply because he was involved.
''Those decisions are left up to management to come up with a strategy that's right for the company.''
But Mr Verbiest said he ''knew a lot of people'', including many who had houses in Wanaka and had strong business connections.
''So it's a matter of tapping them and getting the festival to grow as an event not just for the people of Wanaka.''
Mr Verbiest said he had always loved music, drama and opera and would ''love to see an opera in Wanaka, but that would be a tall ask''.
''We could probably do it on a reduced scale. You could probably do something outdoors ... ''Asked about past problems in Wanaka with a lack of mobile phone capacity during major events, Mr Verbiest said he was not aware of specific problems.
''I know we keep a pretty regular watch on capacity constraints around the place, particularly in places like Wanaka where a lot of people come at certain times of the year.''
Mr Verbiest said a mix of technology and regular flights in and out of Queenstown allowed him carry on his business dealings, and a lot of people were commuting out of Queenstown Airport to Auckland, Wellington and even Australia.
Three trustees - Prue Wallis, Victoria Murray-Orr and Nick Brown - have stepped down and the board now consists of Ms Van Hale, Wayne Findlay (treasurer), John Beattie, Lloyd Davis, Suzanne Ellison, Caroline Hutchison, Lucy Lucas, Dennis Schwarz, Miranda Spary, Mike Toepfer and Mr Verbiest.
