businesswomen-from-new-zealand

"It doesn’t have to look a certain way; it just has to work for you. Whether that is getting up at 5am (I personally couldn’t think of anything worse) or taking half an hour a day to turn all your devices off and read a book – whatever it is it doesn’t have to fit in with what other people think it should."

"It’s easier to inspire once you have a track record because people can just look at your CV and understand the experience and credibility you are bringing to the role. It is much harder for people coming in to a large leadership role for the first time."

"There’s no shortcut or silver bullet to being an inspirational leader. The only way to do it is to lead by example and in accordance with your values — ultimately you must walk the talk."

"When you see great leadership in action, then it’s apparent. And it’s similarly self-evident when leadership is lacking, or worse, missing in action."

"Bold Leadership is having the confidence and the capability to attract others and to inspire, motivate and support them in achieving predefined goals and objectives."

"For mission-driven startups, entering territories with greater risk from a business perspective could raise flags but when viewed from a mission perspective, not tackling them could be worse."

"Startups often have a black box mentality when it comes to socialising with competition."

"The startup spirit has always sought to free itself of corporate-isms. When it came to setting the tone of their founding team,"

"Sometimes it’s unconventional! Some of those conversations are what led to my podcast episode on founder wellbeing and mental health. So, I would be remiss in not pointing you towards my podcast, Now, That’s What I Call Business!"

"I think people sometimes feel pressured to achieve a certain lifestyle – or what ‘work-life balance’ should look like."

"I have sometimes found people raise an eyebrow at me when I talk about my lifestyle – but it’s what works for me!"

"I certainly fit all the characteristics of one. I’m happy to take high levels of risk, I understand impact and scale. I can see the direction trends are moving and that’s crucial, because if you get in front of the curve, you’ll benefit. My motivation has never been about financial success. It’s always been about making an impact that changes whole industries."

"Just be yourself, and trust yourself. I have often said, ‘Think with your head, feel with your heart and trust your puku, your gut’. You see bright young things out of university who have the theory and a plan all set, but it can be difficult if you don’t have empathy, and you can’t feel with your heart. I also tell her ‘make sure you know where your weaknesses are, and make sure you have a plan around them’."

"Finding calm amidst the hustle and bustle of city life can be a challenge, especially if you work in a busy environment and endure a daily commute. After teaching yoga and meditation for a few years, personal circumstances forced me back into an office role, and I found myself suffering from anxiety. Sleep became a challenge, leaving me unrested. I felt misunderstood, started losing confidence, and doubted my ability to perform my job even though I had previously held more senior roles."

"Life has always felt a bit stressful, and anxiety often lurks, looking for an opportunity to make itself known. Knowing this, I have participated in numerous well-being courses and spent many hours training to become a yoga and meditation teacher, as much for myself as for the many children and adults I have taught over the years."

"I am inspired by nature and appreciate the peace I experience when spending time outdoors, whether hiking in the mountains or walking alongside a river or the ocean. When we stop and pay attention, we notice that nature moves at its own pace, and there is no rushing. Nature teaches us resilience, patience, and the beauty of timing."

"The opportunities need to be shared a lot more. That’s why we created Sharesies - to make it really easy for people to get into investing, and to help them feel confident and motivated as investors."

"Alongside breaking-down the barriers to investing, Sharesies is focused on creating an inclusive work culture with a workforce that is representative of all Aotearoa."

"With the technology available today, there’s no reason why access to wealth development should be so unequal."

"Would you be content using only 50% of your brain, if you could instead use 100%? Similarly, any rational society surely profits from deploying in its economy 50% more of its human capacity and potential."

"The number and the enormity of important problems that exist to be solved – and the brief time and chance each have to help solve them."

"I hate generalisations around particular traits or characteristics – even if there is some truth in them. Diversity per se, is generally a good thing – reducing the risk of ‘group think’, for one and bringing more women into business is a powerful way to increase diversity."

"Depersonalise it. We all feel hesitant. If you’re unconvinced, read the studies on ‘imposter syndrome’ amongst senior executives. Get in the ring. It’s the only way to find out what your abilities really are – and to start improving them."

"Work on something you care deeply about. The bumps are easier if succeeding will benefit others. An extraordinary entrepreneur friend of mine, Priv Bradoo, shared some great advice she got from a male mentor. He said that to succeed, you need a big ego. If you don’t have a big ego, you need a strong sense of purpose to compensate."

"It is a huge honour but you don’t do this work to receive an award but when you do it makes you reflect"

"If you don’t understand what is happening on the farm, it is very hard. You have to get the whole value chain working.”"

"The Minister put me in as the meat industry person because I think he wanted a different view other than the traditional leaders of the big commodity businesses, which were huge,”"

"Everyone could have been my grandfather in terms of age – they were highly networked businessmen, including the heads of the wool, dairy, kiwifruit and tourism boards,”"

"“I had to have the confidence to contribute and that came about because I believed in what we were doing. I thought about my contribution and how it could make a difference.”"

"I’ve always been someone to make things happen. I get up every day and look at what we’re trying to do and what we want to achieve,”"

"I’m always thinking, what are we trying to do? What would it take to make it happen? What are the things we can or cannot manage, and how do we manage the rest to make sure we get there?”"

"If you’re the main income earner or you’ve got children and dependencies, the chance you’ll take a risk is probably quite low. But as the kids get older or you get more equity behind you, your risk profile changes. What we do know is that entrepreneurs are most successful when they start a business in their 40s. Perhaps it’s their life stage and experience that means they can more easily understand what it takes to be an entrepreneur."

"100% you can learn the behaviours of an entrepreneur. The one thing that’s hard for people is to develop an appetite for risk. All the other elements of evaluating businesses, seeing opportunities, understanding how to scale, reading business cases and spotting possibilities for expansion – you can learn all those things, they’re fairly formulaic. Once you’ve got those skills sorted, you need to know the sector – to understand the market space and competitor environment. The risk taking however is a very personal aspect and in part, circumstantial."

"The charity’s purpose is to encourage critical thinking and empathy to reduce bullying in schools around gender/sexuality; they achieve this by taking role models into schools to enable open and honest conversations which break down prejudice."

"Turn your emails off, your phone off. You are entitled to have a life."

"Don’t be afraid of difficult conversations. Have them, but with a smile on."

"If you are dreading going to work on a Monday morning for a long period time, change your job"

"It is tougher to run a sustainable business and was much tougher back in the late 90’s and even the 00’s, but it is absolutely essential that sustainable and ethical fashion designers and businesses have pioneered a way for others to follow, as business is now the most powerful vehicle for change in the world, where once before it was government or religion."

"I started in business there were very few women in business here, and women were not well regarded as a good business risk. It was a little bit tough to overcome these issues."

"We are known for our knitwear in luxury fibres that stand the test of time, fibres that deliver the garments that have longevity, with lightness and high performance characteristics, we have some innovative yarns and use a lot of fine beautifully high quality New Zealand merino grown with minimal intervention in the Southern Alps."

"We are sitting at top some of the biggest M&A transactions in Australia at the moment. And I now have a panel of 15 of Australia's most famous bankers. As well as running their own banks they do deals for us and the money that we make on those deals, sometimes millions of millions of dollars goes to our work with people in poverty."

"You missed all the mistakes. You got to take that pedestal and kick it out from underneath me. It's been a journey, but it's been a joyous journey."

"That in leadership, we don't talk about our errors, our mistakes, we tend to try to create the iconic view of humanity and our leaders, but actually it's our mistakes and form us. So being the one that falls down and then finds the courage to stand up again and has the people around you to help you stand up, that's the key to it"

"We're not going to suddenly revisit all of our companies and say we won't hold them in the portfolio because of the potential of an earthquake in Wellington, Christchurch or wherever else the next one might be."

"It will impact our economic growth because the country's reserves will need to be used to rebuild Christchurch. That will have implications because New Zealand was already going to struggle to achieve the sorts of average growth levels that it has in previous decade. It's a bit of knock back."

"I think every member should look at fees, make sure they're in the ball park. You don't necessarily have to go for the lowest fee or the highest if you want to go for the highest make sure their returns are signficantly higher than everybody else so you are getting a decent return for the fees. So look at the reasonableness of fees.""

"When I casually come across someone who says, “Look, I never read the business pages, I never listen to the business news,” I think to myself, “But business is just the intersection of people and money. What could be more compelling than that?”"

"I’ve always loved business and I actually did a business degree at Waikato University. I did lots of things in it, though. I’ve always been curious, in high school I did everything you could possibly do and more. In my business degree, I did Women’s Studies, which would still be pretty unusual today, but it was unheard of 35 years ago."

"No one is more surprised than me that all these years later, that combination of being a business person and being a feminist is sort of cool now, but it definitely wasn’t cool then. I really felt like I didn’t fit in either world. There were very few women in business school in those days, and the women who were there kept their heads down and basically stayed mum and tried to survive. I have never done that, I’ve always been very stroppy."

"Hastings is a great place to do business and we are proactively attracting new business to the District and supporting existing businesses. We are managing growth well, through an efficient, effective maintained infrastructure programme. We have land available for development, a secure water supply and fertile growing soils. We are investing"