I joined the small marketing team at Hectre the day after my graduation ceremony, and now two years in, I realise why they say a year in a startup is equivalent to 10 years anywhere else. I’ve been involved in all marketing activities from creating all sorts of content (written, graphic, video, even animation), to scheduling EDMs, to running webinars, to maintaining our social media, to managing global events and expos to building automation to writing budgets to... the list goes on!The work I’ve been involved in has contributed to millions of dollars worth of opportunity and converted sales, and has resulted in a global shift within the horticulture industry to adopt more technology, machine learning and AI into their processes. This is something I am incredibly proud of.

I won’t forget my first cold call. Staring at the number for 20 minutes before building enough courage to click dial, only for the call to go straight to voicemail.My experience doing outbound sales at EIMS taught me many things, from persevering through constant rejection to understanding what it takes to get someone to book a meeting. It wasn’t easy but it was certainly rewarding to open the door for many massive opportunities.Having this sales experience gave me incredible insight as I embarked on my current profession in marketing as I learnt what is important and involved in getting a deal over the line.

I had the opportunity to co-lead the Marketing Association’s NZ Emerging Marketers Group while I was undergoing my degree. Through the challenges of Covid and lockdowns, we were still able to create a platform that supported up and coming marketers through online resources, events that had 150+ attendees, and by working closely with the University of Auckland.

During the summer break, I had the chance to dip my toes into my first marketing project as an intern at the Marketing Association.I was tasked to do a feasibility study on whether or not it made sense to host a Sport Marketing conference, and being the sports fanatic that I was, I couldn’t be more thrilled!Despite the few delays due to Covid, the research that I conducted over that 2 month period led to the launch of a very successful Game Changer Sport Marketing Conference held at Eden Park in 2022 which included speakers from Nike, SailGP, Australian Open, Spark Sports and more.

My first step into the working world. Spent my high-school holidays for the better part of 3 years running after kids at the Y’s holiday program. Even through the many crying fits, dealing with overbearing parents and trying to control 30+ over-energised children at a time, it was an incredibly fulfilling period of my life, that I wouldn’t trade anything for.

Despite not being flexible enough to touch my toes, and the only basketball experience I had was watching the NBA (go Nuggets!), I was asked to coach youth gymnastics and basketball. I quickly learnt that despite not being involved in these activities before, demonstrating genuine support and encouragement while going through fundamental drills and techniques at this level was more than enough to see immense improvement from the start of the term, to the end for both classes. This experience fuelled my fire in leadership, and showed just how important empathy and encouragement goes in a team’s overall growth.