Brett Andrew Hancock, the founder of Born Digital passed away on Saturday the 9th of May 2026 while hiking in the forest with friends. This is a tribute to the many things he achieved with Born Digital, from the family, friends, and colleagues he leaves behind.
Brett founded Born Digital in 2005, making Born one of the longest standing digital agencies in New Zealand.
For context, when he started the company, YouTube was launched in the same year, but was not owned by Google. Facebook was still a college thing, and no Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, or Twitter/X. Dial-up internet connections were still more prevalent than broadband. Piracy was everywhere, popups on websites were a plague. Things moved fast and those who worked and prospered in the industry had to move faster. Brett had been working in digital businesses since 1999, so he was already a veteran in this crazy environment. In that period you had to make your own rules, thrive ungoverned.
The future is there for the making.
An entrepreneur in ideation, a founder in building a successful business and a raconteur in the storytelling. Brett had a passion for imagining and creating better worlds through technology. He also had a good knack for naming them, like Humanoid Robots and SaaSquatch. And Born Digital was obvious. Because he was. The internet was the perfect home base for a guy like Brett.
He wasn’t afraid of what was possible - he was motivated by it. If Brett had a strapline, it’d be “Just do it” rather than “Just think about it”. He could imagine the future and was committed to delivering it. He was one of the first tenants in City Works Depot and could see the vision for these ex-council engineering workshops being converted into offices. He excitedly took his wife, Kate, to visit when it was still under construction telling her, “you’ve just got to imagine what this is going to look like”. But the future Born office still had a urinal in the corner.
Brett was proud of what Born Digital has achieved, and deservedly so. Born has improved the digital presence and capabilities of many organisations, large and small. He established long-term relationships with some of the biggest companies in New Zealand, as well as local and central government organisations, and many companies in Australia and beyond. Also strong supplier relationships. Born is both a Microsoft and Umbraco partner.
Myself, our CEO, and the entire team at Umbraco were devastated to hear of Brett´s passing. Brett was such a gentle man with a remarkably calm demeanour. He was so easy to talk to, and I remember how passionately he spoke about his many plans for the future. - Emmanuel Tissera - Head of APAC Region, Umbraco
Working with our clients, he had an incredible talent to look beyond the immediate requirements in a brief and see the opportunities to make a real difference. He was able to convey those ideas in a way that got both clients and our team excited about projects. - Christoph Kim - employee since 2011.
Regardless of who you were, Brett listened. He gave time to the moment, really paying attention. As a boss, Brett saw the best qualities in people, seeing their future potential, then helped them to achieve it.
Brett was the most kind and wonderful boss I could ever ask to have in my career. He saw my potential as a young developer and gave me a home away from home at Born Digital for these past 13 plus years. Getting up and going to work every day was so easy with Brett as your boss. The time has flown by, and I just wish I could thank him one more time. - Amanda Koschak - employee since 2012
I appreciated Brett's leadership, support, and the way he always made the workplace feel welcoming and genuine. Brett is someone I could really relate to, and honestly the coolest person I´ve had the chance to work with. - Jay Shin - ex employee
Brett had an unparalleled knowledge of restaurants and bars and high standards, so the regular Born digital lunches, dinners and other events were always at the best, most interesting new places.
He was always kind and helped people in the industry who needed it:
I hadn’t seen Brett for some years, but we met up for a coffee last year. I needed some advice on setting up my own website for work etc. Despite his busy schedule, true to form, Brett took the time to help me out, and he reminded me of his generosity, cheeky infectious nature, always with a smile! I’m so glad that I got to see him again, he was a good and kind person whom I have a lot of respect for. - Martin Sawbridge
Brett was one of my first clients and helped get my agency off the ground 14 years ago. - Kim Voon - Insight Online
When Brett walked into the room, the energy arrived, and afterwards he left everyone feeling great, inspired by new possibilities and motivated to make them happen. Could work really feel this good…. better?
Brett’s time here has passed, and this gives us all a moment to pause and reflect. Brett left a significant legacy in his beautiful family, a successful business which has stood the test of time, a vast number of employees current and past, customer and suppliers who he connected with positively, and a great many, highly innovative websites, products, platforms with millions of lines of code which tested the boundaries of what was possible.
But he also left us with a question - Going forward, how can each of us embrace the future to make our work and lives a little bit Bretter.
