Stories of successful women shared at Taranaki’s inaugural leadership event

Former TSB chief executive Donna Cooper, former Venture Taranaki chief executive Justine Gilliand, event speakers Powrsuit co-founder Kristen Lunman and Global Women chief executive Agnes Naera and Taranaki Regional Council chairwoman Charlotte Littlewood at the Taranaki Women in Leadership event on Friday, October 18. Photo / Alyssa Smith

A new speaker series will help inspire the next generation of Taranaki’s female leaders.

The Taranaki Women in Leadership series, started by former TSB chief executive Donna Cooper, former Venture Taranaki chief executive Justine Gilliland and Taranaki Regional Council chairwoman Charlotte Littlewood, had its first event on Friday and Gilliland says the event reached capacity in 24 hours of tickets going on sale.

“We’re so overwhelmed by the interest and response. We’ve tapped into the appetite and need for such events. We decided to cap the event at 50 attendees so the conversations will flow and means everyone has the chance to ask questions and speak to each other.”

The event was also attended by rangatahi from New Plymouth high schools, said Littlewood.

“This event was about sharing stories to motivate others and share that anything is possible. Part of that is bringing the school students along to see the leaders in their region, and tracking and motivating our region’s next generation of leaders.”

Speakers at the first event were Global Women chief executive Agnes Naera and Powrsuit co-founder Kristen Lunman.

Lunman, who travelled from Wellington to the event, said she was happy to help inspire the next generation of leaders.

“I work to develop female leaders. In doing this, I’ve noticed that as women, we face many invisible barriers so I’m working to not only address them but come up with a solution by equipping women with the tools and connections to navigate a career on their terms.”

Naera said the event is a way Global Women can help share the importance of wāhine leadership in the regions.

“It was a real privilege for me to attend, I learnt as much as I shared. There is a lot to learn from women leading in the regions, it was very special to have the young women from local schools.”

The idea for the series came after Cooper attended a Global Women hui in May, she said.

“I spoke to these fantastic women leaders in New Zealand and it got me thinking about what I can do to help women in this space. From there I attended an emerging female leaders event in the Bay of Plenty which inspired me to do something similar in Taranaki.”

Cooper said when she approached Littlewood and Gilliland, they were keen to jump on board.

“They jumped straight on board and this series is very much a shared creation between the three of us.”

She said the series is about sharing the stories of successful women.

“One thing is when you’re in those larger cities, there’s more visibility of women in leadership. You see less of that in regional New Zealand so we created this event to help share the stories of inspiring leaders across the country.”

Gilliland said leadership can be in corporate, community or sporting organisations.

“You don’t have to be in a formal role to be a leader. It could be leadership in the way of supporting others. For some women, especially in not-for-profit positions or on-farm, there aren’t a lot of opportunities to see women in leadership so having an event such as this makes it accessible to these women, in hopes of building networking opportunities.”

Littlewood said they plan to run more events in the future.

“This is the first of a series so look out for future events.”

For more information or to be added to the waitlist, email charlotte.littlewood@trc.govt.nz.