Her corner in New Zealand

FAMILY TIME: Jesse, Julien (5), Chloe (12), Lucas 13) and Frederique Irwin take a trip to the beach in Gisborne. Pictures by Rebecca Grunwell?

After speaking professionally to top female executives in the United States, Frederique Irwin moved her family from Washington DC (District of Columbia) to Gisborne EC (East Coast) for a year. Andrew Ashton speaks to the Her Corner founder and finds out how a year in Gisborne changed her outlook on life and work.

An American family’s decision to move to Gisborne for a year has not only left a top US businesswoman with a better understanding of the importance of having a work-life balance, it has also encouraged Gisborne women to expand their own businesses.

Frederique Irwin, who has spoken on the topic of women and entrepreneurship at the White House and the US State Department, as well as companies such as Marriott, Chobani, Microsoft and AstraZeneca, moved with her husband and three children to Gisborne on a “year out” last year.

Speaking to The Gisborne Herald, she said the family chose Gisborne for a number of reasons.

“My husband and I always said, before our kids are too old we want to take them to live abroad for a year. We’ve always been based in Washington DC, so this has always been a dream.”

With her husband being an emergency room doctor, the pair felt New Zealand and Australia would be logical choices, due to the fact both countries recognised US medical qualifications.

“He has been landlocked for 15 years being married to me. So, with him being a surfer I said he was welcome to pick wherever he could surf, and so he said ‘Let’s go to Gisborne’.

“I have a business I can run pretty much from anywhere, so it was relatively easy. We moved down here, I tracked down Launch! — the shared work space — and we picked Gisborne because it looked like a great place to live.”

She started the Her Corner business in 2012, to specifically help female-owned businesses to grow. It now operates in New York, Washington DC, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Montana.

Mrs Irwin said her year in Gisborne had been an amazing experience.

From her perspective, there were a lot of similarities between New Zealand and the US.

“In the US, like New Zealand, more and more women are starting their own companies.

“The thing is, those businesses are not necessarily thriving. Especially when you compare them to businesses owned by men, they do significantly less well.

“There are a variety of reasons for that but my hypothesis was, in part, that women do not necessarily know how to grow those companies. So I became interested in that concept — not raising money to help them start businesses, we only wanted to work with companies that were already established and that wanted to grow.”

Mrs Irwin said she saw the same issues here in Gisborne.

“I have met so many women running businesses and I have got to know more and more of them as I’ve been here, and what I find is, just like in the US, these women don’t necessarily think big enough.

“But when you have a conversation with them they begin to imagine the possibilities, then it’s just like you’ve lit a fire and they are just ready to go.

“I think women start businesses for very different reasons. Most men I know who have started a business, if within two years it’s not performing a certain way, they are out.

“Women will start a business because they want to prove something or they want flexibility or they want to replace an income, and they are often starting those businesses while being parents of children or playing many different roles.

“So women see the path of building a business on a longer trajectory. It’s not two years, it’s more like eight years.”

However, that could cause issues courting potential new investors.

“Many women think five years later that they want to grow the business but then have to explain why it has taken so long.”

Women also tended to under-value their companies and products.

She said that while the women she had met in Gisborne were “way more creative” than their US counterparts, there were a lot of similarities.

“What we found in the US is when you get a group of women together, they tend to help each other — and that has been the same here, expect for one thing. When I put women in a group here, every woman was very bashful about saying ‘yep, I want to triple my profit’ among their peers. They actually didn’t want to appear outwardly ambitious.

“Over the following months what I realised was, as I got to know each of them individually, they were all just as ambitious as the Americans but they just didn’t want to say it outwardly. That’s probably the biggest difference.

“I’ve just loved getting to know new people, the businesses here, and the people here. Everybody we’ve met here in Gisborne has been incredible. It has been amazing.

“So, when you talk specifically about having conversations with women business owners, what I have found is there is a real level of interest in finding out how to make more money or how to have more sales. And there’s a lot going on in Gisborne for business owners.”

There was a real opportunity in Gisborne to establish a women’s business group, she said.

“Wherever you turn, it feels like there are women who are wanting to build something or wanting to create something. It seems like everywhere you turn there’s investment, interest and people coming to Gisborne. It really feels like it’s on the brink of something and part of me doesn’t want to leave. I kind of want to wait and see it out, so I am really excited about coming back to see what happens.

“I think one of the best things I’ve learned here is how to protect boundaries. I feel like in the US there is a sort of peer pressure to always be working and always saying ‘yes’. There’s a much higher emphasis here on quality of living, having outside hobbies, having just a richer life.

“It took me a while to realise that it’s actually OK to have hobbies — in the US it’s almost not OK. I think one of the biggest things I’m taking back to the US is that there is way more to life than just working.”

The other thing she hopes to take back to the US, when they leave tomorrow, is a level of awareness about the talent and creativity of New Zealand businesses.