The founder of Audacious Magazine on why a printed story is still worth keeping, and on giving a brand a life beyond a single post.
The assumption is easy to make: in a world shaped by the scroll, print has had its day. Ali Bond sees it differently. “A story in print has permanence,” she says. “It asks you to pause, spend time with it and keep it.”
The latest Roy Morgan readership survey for New Zealand found that nearly half of the 45 magazines it measured grew their print readership in the year to June 2026.
Ali is the founder and publisher of Audacious Magazine, which, as she puts it on her profile, she created as “a premium print publication that celebrates women with depth, substance and remarkable stories.” Its tagline, she says, is “Women of substance. Stories that stay.” Through Maven Communications, she publishes Audacious and creates opportunities for those stories to travel through print, distribution and events. The fourth issue, Spring, takes the magazine offshore to California.
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What Audacious Is
Audacious is a printed magazine. In one LinkedIn post, Ali described a Wednesday that took in new photographs, an interview at home and the discovery of a start-up making handbags in the deep south of New Zealand. “This is Audacious,” she wrote, naming “remarkable women, unexpected journeys and stories that deserve to be told.”
There are motoring pages too. She has written about taking a Lexus RX500 out for them, and about shooting beneath the Hollywood Hills in Los Angeles to create the first Audacious travel feature.
Getting an issue to print, she has written, takes weekends as well.
Seven Days a Week
“I’m building Audacious seven days a week,” Ali says. “It takes a huge amount of time, but it’s joyful work.” When the Spring issue was about to go to print, she wrote that Saturday and Sunday had “disappeared into emails, final details and back-and-forth,” and that messages from the people featured had been “genuine pinch-me moments.”
In another post, she turned to celebration. “Sometimes we need to stop, look at what we’ve built and celebrate it,” she wrote, after an afternoon with two friends that left her thinking, “look at what we’ve achieved.” In the same post she took aim at tall poppy syndrome, and thanked the community of women and men who have backed the magazine.
The magazine is only one part of what she is building.
More Than a Page
Ali describes where she sits as “the intersection of publishing, storytelling and connection.” Maven Communications, where she is business owner, describes itself as a media broker connecting brands with audiences across TV, radio, digital, print, outdoor, events and fundraisers.
“I don’t see a story as a page to fill or a campaign to tick off. I look at how it can be told with depth, who it needs to reach and what else could bring it to life.”
Ali Bond, Founder & Publisher, Audacious Magazine
That might mean a long-form feature, a print partnership, an event or a conversation that continues after the issue is published, she says. One example: on Tuesday 15 September she invited readers to an afternoon at SOUL Bar in Auckland with two Australian women the magazine had featured, with a live Q&A and a three-course spring menu.
For brands, her message is that meaningful attention is about more than impressions. If a brand or a story has been lost in the scroll, she says, they can look at how to give it greater depth and “a life beyond a single post.”
The first thing she asks a brand or a woman with a story is “What do you want people to understand, feel or do” and “why does this story matter now?” The answer, she says, tells them what the right platform might be.
Her profile traces the working life behind it.
Her Working Life
Ali’s profile sets out the career behind Audacious. She was a company director at Real Fires in New Zealand from 1998 to 2019. Since August 2023 she has worked as a leadership development coach under the name Ali Bond Global, and since June 2025 she has been business owner of Maven Communication Limited.
In her words, she has “lived through the collapse of a company, and the fallout was catastrophic.” She adds: “I’m not going to turn that into a neat little lesson. It was horrific.” And then: “But I’ve grown enormously through what followed. I’ve had to look honestly at what happened, take the learning with me and find the strength to build again.”
Her profile leaves out one more chapter.
2021
In 2021, Ali says, she had “a significant cancer diagnosis” requiring “a double mastectomy, chemotherapy and five years of regular CT surveillance for lung lesions.” Recently, she says, she was told there is “no evidence of disease.”
Asked who believed in her before she had earned it, she names her parents.
Barry and Pam
“Their love and support have been unconditional throughout my life,” Ali says. “My father is no longer here, but what they both gave me is still with me.”
“I think it shows up in the way I try to meet people: to see the person behind the profile and to treat their story with care.”
Ali, Founder & Publisher, Audacious Magazine
That approach goes with her into what she is building now.
Where Ali Is Now
“I’m growing Audacious across New Zealand and Australia, reaching readers around the world and building the next issue as we go,” Ali says. In a post about the fourth issue she wrote that, while Audacious was born in New Zealand, it is taking print global, with international distribution and plans to publish in different countries and languages. “This is bigger than a magazine,” she wrote.
Outside work, she loves spending time with her children, partner and friends. “Wining and dining!” she adds.
She wants to hear from brand directors, advertisers and media buyers looking for meaningful ways to reach women, from women with stories to tell, and from people in publishing who believe there is still room to do things differently.
“At the heart of it,” she says, “I want women to read Audacious and see what’s possible when women’s stories are given time, care and space.”
Five Lines from Ali’s Diary
- Some businesses are built to sell products. Others are built to start conversations.
- A story can be read, held and remembered.
- The magazine is the heart of it, but the relationships around it are what give it momentum.
- There’s real pleasure in an interview coming together, an issue reaching readers and seeing women connect through the magazine.
- Women of substance. Stories that stay.
From the Diary of Ali Bond
Ali Bond is an Auckland-based publisher and the Founder of Audacious Magazine.
| Role | Founder & Publisher, Audacious Magazine. Business Owner, Maven Communication Limited. |
| Based in | Auckland, New Zealand |
| Previously with | Real Fires, Company Director, 1998 to 2019 |
| Also with | Ali Bond Global, Leadership Development Coach |
“I’ve built more than a magazine: Audacious is becoming a global publishing movement, connecting women of substance with readers around the world.”
Editor’s Note
Executives Diary chose Ali Bond because she is building a print magazine on a clear argument: that a story in print has permanence. Her posts show the work behind it, from an issue going to print to a travel feature shot in Los Angeles to an afternoon event for readers. Her answers are specific about who she wants to reach, from brand directors and media buyers to women with stories to tell. The editors found that her public posts and her answers describe the same magazine.
Executives Diary, Editorial
