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Maori

Tell us about HTK Group and the values that underpin your mission? What can other New Zealand businesses & entrepreneurs learn from this approach?

HTK Group exists to work with Māori and indigenous groups to help them grow their business potential, whānau prosperity and economic wealth. We offer a range of services, including strategy planning and advice, project management, business continuity planning, enterprise start-up, broader mentoring and advice, and more.

HTK Group is a values based organisation, and our community can expect our organisation to follow certain core values and principles:

  • Whanaungatanga – we work with our people, for our people, and by our people
  • Manaakitanga – we foster and nurture strong and meaningful relationships
  • Rangatiratanga – we build prosperous and sustainable futures
  • Tuturu – we are open, honest and trustworthy
  • Tohatoha – we value reciprocity
  • Aroha – we are passionate about the success of our people
  • Te Tiriti – we value the principles of Te Tiriti

What is also important is what we expect from our team internally – it’s important for us that these values aren’t just stuffed in a draw. We have therefore framed up internal principles to ensure that what is expected externally, is possible within the team.

  • He waka eke noa: We are all on the same boat, and unified. This ensures that when we engage with externals we are unified in our approach.
  • Purpose: what we are trying to achieve through our purpose, is larger than the individual. This acknowledges that while we are strong individually, we are stronger when we work as a team.

Whether an entrepreneur new to the world of business or a more established organisation, having this awhi (support) from a collective of diverse talented kaimahi (staff) committed to the kaupapa (purpose) will lead to a business growing authentically.

Part of your mission is to encourage Māori and indigenous entrepreneurs to think about going global from day 1. How can our business support ecosystem best support businesses to do this?

Focus on the long-run, not the short-run. This leads back to our values and culture. Māori tend to think holistically – instead of thinking what the next couple of years will be like, we ask ourselves what we want the next hundred years to be like for our families and for our people. 

It’s all good to go global, but in terms of how you go about it, you have to ensure you do it in a way that ensures long-term longevity. 

Your Tu Matahiko – Digital Enablement and Capability Program serves to empower Māori businesses on their path to digitisation – why is this a priority for HTK Group?

It’s about the fact that there is a divide between mainstream business and Māori business. As there has been a lot of movement and activity over the last 30 years, it’s been difficult for Māori business and communities to work quickly to adapt. We have a responsibility to provide a lot more access to business if we have that knowledge base. We have a team of highly talented individuals with this knowledge, and now it’s about leveraging our own experiences, on top of the networks we have, to bring our people up to speed to close that divide. 

This will ensure there is a level playing field, and that Māori businesses have the right foundation to get the right advice, not only from an operational standpoint (i.e. legal and accounting), but also around how to utilise the latest technology to build efficiencies.

What are key things you think businesses need to do to go digital?

Businesses need to think in two spaces:

  • Think of going digital as a way to optimise existing systems
  • Think of going digital as a way to transform – implementing emerging technology to further efficiencies. 

On top of optimisation and transformation, lies a challenge around access. We need to provide access, which is an opportunity for communities like HTK and Kea to open new conversations and avenues for expert advice and guidance. 

What do you see as key opportunities for Māori businesses? Are there any trends that you see from the entrepreneurs and businesses you’re working with day-to-day?

Due to our culture and the values embedded within, Māori businesses have a lot of opportunity to build long-term successes and grow lasting relationships that will ensure their success. 

Māori businesses are smart as they look at things holistically (as above). We don’t approach situations or decision-making in a linear way. This isn’t specific to Māori, lots of other cultures think holistically too, and focus on the collective as opposed to the individual. 

The fact that we think holistically and focus on long-term output means we aren’t transactional in our dealings with others. We focus on relationships, and working together to ensure that the success of our people is at the core of how we live and conduct business.

Another aspect is the fact we have generations who have been in labour intensive industries, we have a huge opportunity to incorporate technology to solve problems that our people had to do manually. Utilise the wealth and knowledge that Māori groups have had in the sectors they have been prominent in over the last 50-100 years, and apply technology. When we have this solution to solve a relatable pain-point, then they can take this solution to the world.

Can you share a success story with us?

One passionate entrepreneur we worked with recently was Sonia McManus (Ngāi Tahu) who creates sustainable jewellery.

Sonia’s business, Sonia Therese Design, has grown organically over the past six years through whakawhanaungatanga (building relationships with others) and the stories her beautiful pieces tell. However, like most businesses across the motu (country), she too was impacted by Covid-19. 2020 highlighted the need to solidify her digital presence and ensure she had a robust website to better support the ongoing growth of her business.

We worked with Sonia to support her digitisation. One priority improvement was to help Sonia with building a bespoke, enduring e-commerce solution that would interface seamlessly with her back office integrations, while providing a beautiful customer experience. TU Matahiko introduced Sonia to Magnum, an e-commerce service provider within the programme. After just one meeting with Magnum, Sonia had drastically changed her view of the purpose of her website.

Building the global presence of Sonia Therese Design remains a long-term ambition for Sonia, and TU Matahiko has been instrumental in helping her chart a pathway towards this, “TU Matahiko has given my business the chance to explore and adopt leading edge technology,” says Sonia. “I want to take the messages of my tīpuna into the global stage through my work. I now have the opportunity to do this – I finally have the confidence to share this authentically with the world.”

For more case studies, see here. 

HTK work with a diverse range of Māori and indigenous businesses to drive growth and connections. Visit htkltd.co.nz or reach out to Riki at [email protected] to learn more.

CONTRIBUTOR

Riki Manarangi

Chief Innovation Officer

HTK Group

Kea member



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Filed Under: Businesses growing at home, Kea Connect success stories Tagged With: Accelerator, Business, Entrepreneurs, HTK Group, Maori

Can you tell us briefly about your professional background?

My professional background has been a journey that was initially anchored in accounting and finance, a skill I learned from my parents who managed our personal and whānau affairs, not through a love of learning math or accounting at school (my High School experience in South Auckland is another story!). When I arrived in NYC in my mid-twenties I discovered a global community, quickly drawn to places like the United Nations where a friend invited me to a staff party and I was brushing shoulders with Kofi Annan – I guess I realised that I had this immediate access to this global arena and from that point on it shaped my tertiary studies in NYC and where I wanted to work. I had the option to decide on an entry role either at the UN or with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT) and I ended up showing my allegiance to NZ, spending around ten years working for both MFAT and then NZTE. A decade in with a NY degree and growing family, I started my own company managing events and projects in the US for New Zealand and US non-profits. Ultimately this directed me to the well-oiled machine of philanthropy in the US which is both a fascinating and challenging space to work in.

What influenced your decision to return to Aotearoa?

It has always been the dream to return to Aotearoa one day and I made a personal commitment to myself and my whānau to be able to set my feet on home soil every year I spent away, which means I’ve flown across the Pacific at least 22 times in each direction, the last 12 of those journeys with children in tow. In February 2020 we had committed our twins to fabulous schools in NYC after a gruesome application process, and declared to our whānau that we’ll be moving permanently to Aotearoa in 2033 to finally settle after the kids had graduated… Covid changed all of that!

We were on one of the last flights out of Houston a month later, arriving in NZ one day before the country went into level 4 lockdown in March. We found a place to quarantine in Auckland through the kindness of friends “stuck” in Chicago, which ended up being our interim rental here. Beds were left unmade in our small NY apartment which is now almost packed in boxes awaiting our next move…

As a Māori woman business leader who has recently come home, what have you noticed about the culture and society in New Zealand and how they respond to female ambition?

I’m not sure what female ambition is, other than to speak from the perspective of being a mother who will always fearlessly advocate for my children’s needs and rights to the very best standards this world can offer. Being a Māori woman who has had to navigate a dominant white patriarchal society, education, corporate, business structures and systems all of my life, that have persisted over the generations due to colonialism in Aotearoa, it has been a life-long journey that requires resistance, grit, fortitude and the need for space to reflect, recover and heal.

As a business woman returning to a corporate New Zealand environment after being in the US so long, I’m inspired to see the many thriving fellow Māori women – and men – business owners, executives and community leaders and it feels great to be in affinity with other Māori entrepreneurs after being one of a small few in the US. [The “Offshore” view of Māori is an entirely different range of tensions which is another article in itself.] Outside of the Māori business landscape however, I am also appalled at the lack of infrastructure in NZ to champion equity for Māori and other marginalised people in Aotearoa and have noticed a disconnect or delayed response between mainstream New Zealand and movements such as #MeToo and #BlackLivesMatter compared to other parts of the world. The intersection of gender and race is an important space for me to interrogate and I don’t think that NZ is as progressive as we might like to think we are. All we need to do is to look at just a few of the terrible statistics out there such as the 63% of incarcerated women in NZ being Māori when the Māori population sits around 15%; that outstrips all in the OECD and is systemic. And that is in a country that’s had legal prostitution since 2003 so to me it suggests that being Māori has worse outcomes than merely being a woman in NZ, so being a Māori woman? Good luck!

I feel there is so much more emphasis in NZ on the concept of “equality” which is not as targeted nor as transformative as an equity lens offers, which also requires us to address the past wrongs that can bring about a level playing ground in order for Māori, Pasifika and other marginalised communities an ability to compete and thrive in “Corporate NZ”. Just look at the introduction of a Māori procurement policy for the $42B goods and services with the NZ government – I could not believe that in 2020 NZ still did not allocate a portion of it’s governmental contracts specifically for Māori suppliers, especially when I have been able to access government contracts in NY for years as an Indigenous woman business owner. Australia has had an Indigenous Procurement Policy in place for years as well. Here in NZ we are supposed to be in partnership under Te Tiriti and this is not at all reflective of a partnership in the economic development sense. How has this been ignored for so long when NZ’s CANZ partners are performing better on this particular measure?

You’ve recently joined the Courageous Conversation Aotearoa Foundation as the Executive Director. Can you talk to the work that the Foundation does? Why is it so important?

I have long admired the Courageous Conversation™ framework which I came across in New York as I navigated the independent school system for my children. The founder Glenn Singleton who hails from Baltimore presented to my daughter’s NY school around 2015 and it was the first time I felt as though someone was able to harness a room full of people from different races and disparate life experiences to engage in a conversation about difficult and often uncomfortable topics on race and racism and how it impacts our lives, families, schools and workplaces and systems. I joined the US board of the Courageous Conversation Global Foundation in 2017 and after returning to NZ in 2020, followed by the killing of George Floyd that saw protests all over Aotearoa while also acknowledging issues Māori had been voicing for generations, the time was right to establish the Courageous Conversation Aotearoa Foundation. The work speaks for itself and has been self-sufficiently growing in the private and governmental sectors here in NZ for six years already so the Foundation is built on a proven method and deliverables thanks to an incredible team that understands the importance of authentic Treaty-based partnerships.

Grounded in Te Tiriti we offer a protocol for healthy and productive conversations about race and racism, deepening our collective understanding of racial equity. The aim of the Foundation is to offer this protocol and learning to the community for free. This work is important not just for those who need additional support, but for all in our community so we can collectively address these issues and live to our fullest potential in this world. It can’t be built on the backs of the already marginalised few. It’s also evident that when diversity, inclusion and equity policies are prioritised within corporate entities, that economic outcomes improve – just ask one of the global companies headquartered in the US. If the backlash from #BLM didn’t highlight that I don’t know what will. We’re still interconnected economically, otherwise we wouldn’t care what is happening with foreign trade, in the stock market or with exchange rates.

Courageous Conversations works to elevate racial consciousness in Aotearoa. After being away from New Zealand for so long, have you noticed any change in racial consciousness since you’ve returned?

I can’t say I’ve noticed much change in racial consciousness in mainstream New Zealand upon return, but 2020 was a big year shifting perspectives I think. The attempts that Stuff made to acknowledge the prevalence of racism in NZ media / society was encouraging, but I always go back to those who are at the decision-making table. Who is on your executive leadership team, your board of directors, or the stakeholders who hold economic power that are able to both financially and spiritually champion these efforts? It is uncommon to think of the spiritual sense within a corporate entity but there is more demand for an integrated work-life-environmental balance so I believe it’s important to speak to this aspect. This is not an overnight fix but an ongoing commitment that requires a type of unrelenting perseverance and non-negotiables to really reverse the many negative statistics we have in NZ. Ultimately it requires buy-in from the most senior in leadership. It requires courageous leadership which is why the Foundation will also be developing a Courageous CEO and Governance Leadership programme for both for profit and nonprofit (philanthropic) leaders.

I have to remain hopeful and it is encouraging to see the many change makers in the existing corporate NZ landscape – particularly in Diversity-Inclusion roles although in NZ these roles often forget to include the “Equity” piece, or they isolate the role so it’s not integrated across the organisation and ends up being tokenistic and not transformative. I do worry that this gives us a false sense of progress. Interests often default to the majority white patriarchal influencers that dominate our economic and political landscapes. This is why representation at the very top, matters.

The theme of International Women’s Day this year is #ChooseToChallenge. What is your challenge to New Zealand?

I guess my challenge to New Zealand would be to view the negative statistics as if they are impacting your own family, and then to interrogate why you wouldn’t do anything to make whatever changes you can make in your own lives, your community, your workplace or schools to address societal inequities. Imagine if that was your own mother or sister or daughter in prison – I bet anyone would fight tooth and nail to reverse that reality. We can each take a small step to look in the mirror, reflect and acknowledge how we can be part of the solution, to not just reimagine a better future for our mokopuna, future generations, but to actually use our positions of privilege, access and influence to help drive that change. March is not only International Women’s Month but it is also when we have International Race Relations Day and the tensions that have long existed around women’s movements, whether they be in the US or NZ, is that white women have often dominated the narrative which will always be contentious for women of colour. I know there are white/pākeha allies out there – I challenge them to come forward and to work in allyship with people of colour. The first step is to understand what an ally looks and feels like.

Is there a particular connection that you’ve made in your life that has amplified your career in some way?

I’ve had several connections who have amplified my career and often it’s been other women. There are at least five older Māori women in NZ who come to mind right now who I have admired and learned from. Those who helped me recognise what I needed to do to get up from the floor after being drop-kicked by a monocultural workplace, and stood by me along the way. It is also the two US-based NZ women of a similar age as me, who help me identify pathways forward when in oppressive environments. And it is has also been two incredible women, Bess Pruitt who sadly passed in September 2020, and her sister Harriett McFeeters, who are African American and have lived through segregation and the Civil Rights movement; they gave me a room to board in their family home in the Bronx and acted as ‘sponsors’ for my student visa so I could see out my BA in NYC, and then guided me through nearly every career turn that happened since. That’s the concept we understand as whakawhanaungatanga.

What’s a piece of advice that you would give to young women early in their career?

Identify your passion in life as early as possible and start working in that area as soon as you can. Sometimes accessing those spaces might not be in the form you imagined such as starting at an entry level, but gaining access is important so you can get a sense of the environment and internal practices. Challenge systems. Build relationships. Don’t be afraid to question things. Approach with trust that everyone is coming from the best intentions and be ready to stand your ground because one day you will need to.

What are your hopes for 2021?

I hope that in 2021 the world can eradicate the threat of Covid-19 which is impacting communities of colour at greater numbers than others, so that children around the world can return to in-person learning. And I hope that we never forget the impact of 2020 around the globe, that saw the simultaneous crises in both the pandemic and racial injustice. That needs to remain a turning point in this lifetime for the entire world to spur systemic change.

CONTRIBUTOR

Sarah Smith

CEO and Director

MokoISM

Kea member

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Filed Under: Businesses growing at home, Global Kiwi, Kiwi coming home, World changing Kiwi Tagged With: Coming Home, international women's day, Maori, Sarah Smith

What’s your story? How did you get to be where you are today?

Perseverance and an incredibly loyal and supportive tribe.

Why do you think it’s so important to bring Māori art and culture to a wider audience?

I think it’s imperative that you stand in your own truth, that you draw from everything that makes you, you. In my case, that is being Māori, a wāhine, a māmā and wife, a friend and a creative. The reach has evolved very organically and although I understand the importance of numbers and a wider audience, the most important thing is that we are adhering to the responsibilities we have when sharing our culture.

Where do you pull inspiration from when creating? 

From Te Āo Māori, nature, natural fabrics and texture. 

How was the Kāhui Collective formed and why?

I formed the Kāhui Collective in 2017 to help four Māori fashion designers grow their businesses and source fabrics. There was a need and no one was helping to bridge or support that need, so I figured someone should start.

Since that first Hīkoi (trip), the designers I took up have ventured to China by themselves and created business relationships. Last year (2019) I took 15 Māori creatives to China, visiting 5 different cities and we met with high-level industry organisations and individuals. 

The focus was to see where Māori fashion could or would sit within the bustling markets of China and how we would navigate the logistics, means to market, scale, commercialisation and within all of this maintain our cultural integrity. 

What does this latest collection mean to you?

I was invited to participate in the Thai silk fashion week, an initiative of the queen of Thailand for the revitalisation and sustainability of the ancient art of handwoven Thai silk. I was completely in awe of these beautiful weavers and to witness a traditional practice that was financially contributing directly back into the villages and people. I purchased some silk whilst there and created a very clean collection with textured handwoven accessories. In effect, I hand wove the handwoven fabric. It reveals a combination of Thai weaving and Māori weaving, tradition, contemporary execution and cultural crossovers. 

What was it like seeing your design on the Oscars red carpet?

I was mostly in total admiration of Chelsea! She was so happy and I could see she felt confident and beautiful. That made my heart sing. It was a wonderful moment that will be treasured always. 

How has the response been to the pop up in Britomart?

I can’t even deal with how incredible it feels to witness people walking in the store beaming with pride that this tiny little department store exists! The joy, excitement and will to support and buy Māori made is overwhelming. There have been so many conversations and connections. I feel so very humbled by the entire experience and so very proud of the Kāhui designers. 

What’s next?

We have three more weeks to test the market in Britomart, track what’s working and what needs attention. We’re full steam ahead with the Kāhui Collective in conjunction with New Zealand Trade and Enterprise, which will see us export primarily into China, secondarily into the US. We plan to show at Shanghai Fashion Week in October and there are conversations around New York Fashion Week this year. Most importantly we need to build a strong foundation here in New Zealand first, so the Britomart store is the perfect segue into affirming a permanent presence in the New Zealand fashion scene. 

Check out The Kāhui Collective.

CONTRIBUTOR

Kiri Nathan

Founder

Kāhui Collective

Kea member


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Filed Under: Businesses growing at home Tagged With: Design, Fashion, Kāhui Collective, Kiri Nathan, Maori

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