About
Maxine J. Horne is one of Australia’s best-known self-made entrepreneurs. Starting with a single Gold Coast mobile-phone kiosk in 1995, she transformed Fone Zone into the ASX-listed Vita Group, a national technology retailer that eventually controlled 165 locations, employed more than 2,500 people and generated annual revenue that topped A $875 million.
After selling Vita’s Telstra-branded stores to Telstra for about A $100 million and guiding the sale of its remaining businesses, Horne stepped down as chief executive in November 2021, remaining on the board as a non-executive director.
Far from slowing down, she pivoted into private investing, advisory work and television, joining Network Ten’s relaunched Shark Tank Australia panel for the 2024 season.
Before Fame
Horne grew up in Coventry, England, raised largely by her grandparents and her resource-ful father. She immigrated to Australia in the early 1990s with little capital but lots of sales experience. In 1993 she scraped together about A $5,000, and two years later opened the first Fone Zone outlet at Pacific Fair Shopping Centre.
The concept was simple—sell mobile phones where people actually shopped—yet it was almost unheard-of at the time. Her hands-on style, focus on customer service, and knack for spotting growth niches helped Fone Zone expand rapidly; by 2005 the company listed on the Australian Securities Exchange as Vita Group.
Trivia
- Award magnet: Horne was named Queensland Business Review Businesswoman of the Year in 2006, won EY’s Northern Region Entrepreneur of the Year in 2014, and collected The Courier-Mail Business Person of the Year in 2019.
- Author: Journalist Madonna King chronicled her story in Think Smart, Run Hard (2016), a book whose profits support children’s charity Act for Kids.
- Hall-of-Famer: She was inducted into the Australian Businesswomen’s Hall of Fame in 2016.
- Passionate about people: Horne credits Vita Group’s award-winning staff-development programs for much of the company’s sustained growth and four consecutive appearances in the BRW Fast 100.
Family Life
Maxine balances business with an active home life. She and her husband have two children, who literally grew up crawling around early Fone Zone shop floors while their mum served customers and closed deals.
Despite a demanding schedule, she carves out time for philanthropy—most visibly as a corporate ambassador for Act for Kids, which works to prevent and treat child abuse across Australia.
Associated With
On Shark Tank Australia Season 6, Horne invests alongside fellow business heavy-hitters Jane Lu, Davie Fogarty, Robert Herjavec and Nick Bell, offering founders not only capital but decades of retail and scaling know-how.
Earlier in her career she forged a landmark master-license partnership with Telstra, running more than 115 Telstra stores—a deal often cited as a model for successful corporate–entrepreneur collaboration.
