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With a good idea and the right advice, export can be a lucrative market for any business (Image: Tina Tiller/Getty)
With a good idea and the right advice, export can be a lucrative market for any business (Image: Tina Tiller/Getty)

PartnersNovember 10, 2022

Secret to success: how good ideas can become big business

With a good idea and the right advice, export can be a lucrative market for any business (Image: Tina Tiller/Getty)
With a good idea and the right advice, export can be a lucrative market for any business (Image: Tina Tiller/Getty)

Despite 30% of New Zealand companies being led by women, only 15% of our goods exporters are. NZTE wants to encourage more of our wāhine-owned businesses to go international.

At the 1998 MTV Awards, Madonna – joined by Lenny Kravitz on guitar – stepped on stage to perform her single ‘Ray of Light’ to a live TV audience of millions. The pop legend, who had just beaten Puff Daddy, Will Smith, The Verve and Brandy & Monica to win the coveted Video of the Year award, was wearing a plain white singlet and a pair of wide-leg Karen Walker trousers, bought at Barney’s department store in New York. 

For Walker, who’d just started stocking Barney’s that year, the impact was immediate. Barneys rang the next day to order “any trousers you have”. 

Today, Walker retails in 42 countries, 200 cities and 1,020 stores and is ranked by industry analysts as one of the top 500 people shaping the global fashion industry. As well as pants, she sells eyewear, jewellery, homeware, fragrance, shoes, handbags, bridal wear, and is worn by some of the world’s most visible women, including Michelle Obama, Lady Gaga, Rihanna, Gigi Hadid and Adele.

But it wasn’t just celebrity exposure that has propelled Walker’s business into the stratosphere. And the point of international growth isn’t just to make sales.



On Going Global, a podcast about exporting, Walker explains how being in offshore markets expanded all kinds of horizons. 

“New Zealand is only so big, so if we wanted to grow our business, it made more sense to be a global niche product than a mass-market local,” she says. “We saw what it was like [internationally], what fashion and culture and creativity were like, and thought we wanted to be part of that type of thinking and that type of community.”

In the decades since Madonna wore Karen Walker’s pants, more female-led New Zealand businesses have taken to exporting, selling tech and services, as well as consumer goods. There’s Banqer, co-founded by Kendall Flutey (Ngāi Tahu, Ngāti Kahungunu), a platform that helps young people improve their financial literacy and confidence. And Kami, co-founded by Alliv Samson, a digital education provider used by over 32 million people around the world. 

Even Shit You Should Care About (SYSCA), an Instagram account steered by a trio of young women originally from Blenheim, is technically an exporter: they translate the world’s biggest news stories to a global audience of thousands of paying subscribers (and more than 3.6m social followers).

According to research by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT), more than 250,000 New Zealand women were exporting last year, representing 40% of New Zealand’s total export workforce, up from 38% a decade ago. 

But that’s not enough. 

With the right idea, and support behind them, women-led businesses can take on the world (Image: Archi Banal)

“We know that around 30% of companies in New Zealand are led by women, but only 15% of our goods exporters are, which is a huge drop,” says Anna Guenther, New Zealand Trade and Enterprise’s (NZTE) women in export lead. 

“We also know that women have been graduating from commerce degrees at the same rates as men since 1985, yet we’re not seeing that coming through in the leadership or founding of companies. So it’s clear that we have a leaky pipeline, and it shocks me that we still haven’t fixed that, 35 years down the track.”

Like many NZTE staff, Guenther has been an exporter herself – she co-founded crowdfunding platform PledgeMe, expanding it into Australia, and is still on its board. 

At NZTE, she’s dedicated to getting more women into exporting. “That means actively supporting women-led companies who might need help removing barriers or leveraging opportunities, and identifying some of the things that might be stopping women from exporting,” she says. “We also want to figure out why companies led by men might not have any women in their leadership team and what we can do about it. So it’s not just about founders and CEOs – it’s looking at leadership with a more holistic approach.”

NZTE has a number of resources on offer for women, such as its Exports Essentials online course, its network-building, knowledge-sharing Women in Export Leadership events, and the chance to consult directly with Guenther herself.

Guenther says the most common barriers women face are having less extensive business networks compared to men, consistently attracting less funding than men, and cultural expectations that can limit their roles.

“Some of these barriers are really systemic. For women with children, there are often expectations around childcare, for instance, that [the mother has] to be the one that’s always there with the kids.  You can expense for the cost of hosting an event, catching an Uber to that event, but not for childcare to go to that event, which is hard if you need to do something at night or on weekends, which can often be the case with export businesses.”

And some barriers are self-perpetuating. In the US, just 2% of venture capital went to female founders last year, while in New Zealand, NZTE investment data estimates that women are raising 1.7 times less money compared to men. “What’s really sad,” adds Guenther, “is we’ve had people tell us the reason they never raise investment is because they heard that only 2% of global venture capital goes to women, so why would they even try?” 

While the barriers are daunting, those who take the export plunge are able to access markets that are bigger and more lucrative on a scale unimaginable within Aotearoa’s borders. 

Women who export earn on average 10% more than non-exporting counterparts across all industries.

And there are some aspects of exporting that wāhine do better. According to NZTE’s research, women tend to be more educated and prepared before making a big business decision like exporting. They’re more likely to discuss their issues and seek support, more likely to attract positive media coverage, and more likely to generate better returns – while women raise significantly less investment on average, they tend to generate more in revenue overall.

Brianne West, who started her global cosmetics brand Ethique in her kitchen, says the opportunities exporting has given her company “vastly outweigh” the challenges. 

“Viewing the challenges as little bumps on the road rather than catastrophic problems made it all seem so much more achievable. Export was not the unattainable dream I had imagined after all.”

In fact, it might be risky to waste time nurturing a domestic market, if your ambitions are ultimately elsewhere. Kami founder Alliv Samson told Going Global, “we always wanted to grow big overseas, but we kind of did the opposite. We tried doing it locally and that didn’t work for us… We could have immediately gone to the US and grown even faster. That was my biggest regret – not (exporting) on day one… If only we knew it was that easy, we could’ve done it.”

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Guenther advises women considering exporting to figure out how to test what sort of interest there is for your product or service. 

“Some of the best examples of women really succeeding are the ones who listen to those market signals and just give it a go,” she says. “Better Packaging, for example, just put up a website so people could start signing up and show they were interested, and then decided to go ahead [with exporting their product] because there were so many people responding to their Google ads.”

In retrospect, Karen Walker says she probably wasn’t sure she was “ready” to sell in the US either – but she’s glad that didn’t stop her. “Just throw yourself in there,” she says. “Just get on with it. It’s not going to be perfect, but it’s not going to be perfect if you don’t do it either.”


Find Going Global in the Business is Boring feed on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts.

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Image: Tina Tiller
Image: Tina Tiller

ĀteaNovember 9, 2022

Embracing the inbetween cultures of my Puerto Rican, Pākehā, Māori family

Image: Tina Tiller
Image: Tina Tiller

Balancing the Puerto Rican culture she grew up with and the Māori and Pākehā cultures her kids also inherited has been a parenting challenge for Elisa Rivera – but she’s learning to find the beauty in that balance.

What’s more important for my kids – their Spanish heritage or their Māori heritage? 

This is the question I struggled with since my son Milo was born in 2017. I was naturally overwhelmed, as most parents are, with the arrival of a cute chubby potato with huge adorable brown eyes to look after and keep alive. But above all else, I felt ill-equipped for how I was going to teach him to stand in and be proud of both his Puerto Rican and Māori heritage. I am Puerto Rican, living in New Zealand, distanced from my own community on the other side of the world.

I don’t have any Puerto Rican family here in Aotearoa, and there is no one on my husband’s side of the family that I can lean on to learn more about the iwi my son is a part of: Te Āti Awa, Taranaki, Ngāti Te Whiti. Equipping Milo with the knowledge about either side of his brown history felt solely up to me.

Growing up in California, the Spanish language surrounded me. Both of my parents, born in Puerto Rico, are fluent and always spoke Spanish in the house. I’ve been told I solely spoke Spanish until I started school. I remember Saturday mornings being filled with sounds of salsa and merengue. This was also our cue to my sisters and I that it was time to complete our chores, a tradition I still uphold today. We watched Sabado Gigante, a Spanish variety show on Saturday nights. My parents had parties where people danced and played instruments and sang. We had a community. But somewhere along the way the language sadly left me. Speaking Spanish at primary school in the 80s was not embraced. So of course, I slowly shoved the language away and only let it have life at home. 

In 1989, when I was eight years old, I went to Puerto Rico with my mom for a full three-month summer break. I came back with a full puku from the fried plantains and arroz con pollo and other delicious goodies my Abuela fed me. I watched all the Spanish soap operas at the time and understood the dramatic (and probably waaay too mature for an eight-year-old) plots. I could converse in Spanish with my family! But once I came back to California and school was back in session, I lost the language again. I look back on this time with such joy and nostalgia and feel so fortunate to have experienced this full immersion into my culture. If only I could have kept a hold on it.

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I can understand when my mom and sisters use Spanish to gossip about someone else in public on the sly, which is always funny. I can sing ‘Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes’ in Spanish. I can comprehend a conversation if someone is speaking slowly. And you’re goddamn right I still love a salsa boogie. But, I have a constant shame hanging over me because I can’t speak the language. My practised line; “I can understand, but I can’t converse,” is usually met with a knowing nod that I only interpret as “Shame, girl”. 

By no longer knowing how to speak Spanish, and never learning to speak te reo Māori, am I now placing this same burden, this shame, on my son?

I first visited Aotearoa in 2007. My plan was to take a break from “real” life, spend three months in this gorgeous country on a working holiday visa and head back home to reality. But as the story goes, I met a bunch of incredible humans here, one of them my now husband of 10 years, Dan. I came back in 2008 and became a permanent resident.

Dan and I got married, bought an apartment in Auckland and then after many years of wishing and hoping, we got pregnant with Milo. 

When it was time for Milo to go to primary school we struggled with whether we should enrol him in the bilingual te reo immersion (Te Whānau Awahou o Te Uru Karaka) class or the English medium class. One of the requirements for the bilingual medium was that we as parents must fully commit to taking a te reo journey ourselves and speak it fluently. It makes sense. As I once heard Te Kuru Dewes say: Te Reo starts in the home. I wholeheartedly believe that, but how could I fully commit to te reo when I haven’t even fully committed to Spanish, the language spoken to me since I was born?

We decided that if we were going to devote our time to teaching our kids a second language it would be with the language at least one of us had some experience with, Spanish. I felt guilty. How could I be depriving my son of a language that he is so closely tied to? How could I be so selfish to not commit to learning te reo so he could experience an incredible and valuable educational experience that is so rare?

Milo started school in the Auraki – English Medium Pathway in January 2022. By term two he was thriving and loving school. He was more confident with a pen, he loved drawing dinosaurs, he was really excited about what I only know as the “top playground” and meeting so many new friends. By then some of my guilt had gone away. 

Then one night we began our normal gathering around the coffee table for dinner, Milo’s sister Desi to his right, Dan, my husband, to his left and me across from him. Before we were all about to tuck in he asked, “can I say a karakia?” Dan and I looked at each other surprised but excited. “Of course!”

Milo began. “Whakapiri ō ringa ringa, kapi ō karu, tūpou te māhunga ki raro, me inoi tātou…”

He was confident, he was happy and he had mana. We all felt it.

I was teary and proud. He finished with “thank you, thank you very much” a la Elvis Presley because he’s also a dork. It seems kinda simple, but it wasn’t until then that I realised we can have both. We can embrace the importance of our Puerto Rican heritage and our Māori heritage. We don’t have to prioritise one over the other. Even though Milo is in the English medium class at school, his kaiako are speaking to him in te reo every day. He sees te reo all around him. 

Milo loves teaching his parents about atua Māori. His favourite is Tāne Mahuta (Image: Supplied)

He’s currently teaching me about the Māori gods. I just learned the god of volcanoes and earthquakes is called Rūaumoko. He’s learning a dance to ‘Poi Ē’ – he even added his own wave variation at the end which he is super proud of – and is teaching me the lyrics. He taught me the rhyme to remember the names of all the Matariki stars, which strangely sounds a lot like The Macarena, a Spanish song! 

His sister, Desi, corrected me the other day when I said “Let’s sing ‘Tutira’,” and she said, “It’s ‘Tūtira Mai Ngā Iwi’, mum.” She’s two. I taught my kids how to count to ten in Spanish and in turn they taught me how to count to ten in te reo. We describe our feelings using Māori words. We read bilingual stories before bedtime so we can learn together.

I now feel an even more special bond to Aotearoa. I too have island blood, and it’s been amazing to learn how close the Puerto Rican and Māori cultures align. Our vowel sounds are the same. We love our kai and use it not just for nourishment but for emotional healing, for both celebration as well as commiseration – to connect. By being exposed to te ao Māori through my kids and my place of employment I’m learning more about myself, about my own Puerto Rican heritage, about my own pepeha. I feel lucky.

I’m fortunate to work with a company which recognises Te Tiriti o Waitangi as New Zealand’s founding document and the partnership and equity it embodies. We discuss what it means for us as a business but also as individuals. I am reading, or listening, or speaking with my community about this often. I’m learning about tikanga, have had an emotional wānanga at a marae, have attended a few pōwhiri, indulged in many delicious boil-ups and hāngī and sang waiata with my colleagues. My confidence is growing every day. 

In July of this year, we spent the school holidays in California with my family. It had been four years since we last saw them and – apart from it being 40 degrees and Milo making it very clear that he didn’t like the weather in “Mami’s country” – it was perfect. We arrived to the warmest of welcomes. Milo and Desi spent time with their Welo and Wela (grandparents) and their Titis and Tios (aunts and uncles) and Primos (cousins). They impressed everyone with the Spanish words and I could see the pure elation on my parents’ faces when I asked Desi how to say shoes in Spanish and she shouted “zapatos!” They brought such delight with their silly jokes and funny accents. They are absorbing more than I gave them credit for. 

Are we fluent? No. Are we perfect? No. Do we have a long way to go? Absolutely. Did I say “Put the kai in your boca.” (put the food in your mouth) in a strange mashup of Spanish/English and Māori the other day during a meal? Yes. 

My kids get to attend a kura where the native language is championed at all levels. Our kids are taught to embrace all of themselves. Our kura and kaiako nurture the enthusiasm of the tamariki, they value diversity and celebrate success. And my kids are teaching me to do that. There’s no guilt. We’re all learning together, and that is so ridiculously special to me.

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