The Female Career. Trailblazing New Zealand women share their career journeys The Female Career

Amanda Malu (Ngāi Tahu) is Chief Executive of Whānau Āwhina Plunket, which is a charity and Aotearoa’s largest support service for the health and wellbeing of tamariki under-five and their whānau. Amanda has been the Chief Executive since 2016. Prior to that, her career has seen her take on a wide range of marketing and communication leadership roles across not-for-profit and public sector organisations such as Maritime New Zealand, the Families Commission and the Tertiary Education Commission. Since recording this episode, Amanda has been appointed Deputy Chief Executive Service Delivery at ACC.
In this episode, Amanda talks about:
Her pathway to becoming a Chief Executive out of a career in marketingHer experiences of returning to work after parental leave, including starting back when her baby was 3 months old and being promoted while on parental leaveHow she responded to situations where conversation was directed at the man in the room even when she was more senior
🎙 "I think as women, one of the things we are very good at is going: 'Well, there must be someone better than me, so I'll just wait and see'. Actually, you might be the best person, so put yourself out there."

Professor Bronwyn Hayward is an internationally-recognised sustainability and climate change advocate. Her day job is as a Professor at the University of Canterbury in the Department of Political Science and International Relations where she is also Director of The Sustainability, Citizenship & Civic Imagination Research Group: Hei Puāwaitanga. Bronwyn is also part of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. She is passionate about sustainability, climate, youth and democracy.
In 2021, Bronwyn was made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit in recognition of her outstanding work. In 2022, she was chosen as the Supreme Winner in the Women of Influence Awards.
In this episode, Bronwyn talks about:
Strategies for breaking into academia as a womanHow we can work collectively and improve the way we collaborate to solve big issuesCompleting her PhD with young children
🎙 "Doing a PhD with very young children meant that there was something I was doing for myself as well as raising the children. But I didn't know any other women who were actually doing it."
Follow us on Facebook and Instagram, or sign up to our newsletter to receive career insights direct to your inbox using the form on our website.
Find out more about The Female Career and the services we provide, including leadership coaching, career coaching and gender pay gap analysis on our website.
We’d love to hear your feedback. If you’d like to get in touch you can email us on hello@thefemalecareer.com.

It's not easy to juggle a career with being a parent. In today's episode, five New Zealand women share their experiences and insights into how they make it all work. They talk about fitting work around their kids' schedules, what happens when family and work intersect, running a business while looking after a small child, and their hopes and dreams for more gender balanced parenting and work roles. We hope the thoughts of these women are useful and inspiring for you:
Miriana Stephens (Ngāti Rārua, Ngāi Te Rangi, Ngāti Ranginui), Leader of wellness business AuOra™, Director of Wakatū Incorporation - and mum of 4Alliv Samson, Co-Founder and COO of EdTech app Kami - and mum of 1Rhiannon McKinnon, CEO of KiwiWealth - and mum of 3Jacqui Magure, Clinical Psychologist, Science Communicator, Media Contributor - and mum of 1Megan Scott, Director at PwC - and mum of 1
Follow us on Facebook and Instagram, or sign up to our newsletter to receive career insights direct to your inbox using the form on our website.
Find out more about The Female Career and the services we provide, including leadership coaching, career coaching and gender pay gap analysis on our website.
We’d love to hear your feedback. If you’d like to get in touch you can email us on hello@thefemalecareer.com.

Do you want to think more strategically? Have you been told that you need to lift yourself out of the operational space to think more futuristically?
Strategic thinking is something that frequently comes up in our coaching conversations. In this episode, we offer you our thoughts, advice and practical tools that will help you to think more strategically and progress your career.
We cover:
What is strategy? Why does it matter?3 ways to think more strategicallyKey tools you can use to build a strategic mindset
Follow us on Facebook and Instagram, or sign up to our newsletter to receive career insights direct to your inbox using the form on our website.
Find out more about The Female Career and the services we provide, including leadership coaching, career coaching and gender pay gap analysis on our website.
We’d love to hear your feedback. If you’d like to get in touch you can email us on hello@thefemalecareer.com.
Image credit: Christina Morillo

How do you know you are being paid a fair rate?
Can you be both grateful and assertive?
Practical tips to get the gender pay gap on the agenda at your organisation
In this special episode of the podcast we talk all things gender pay gap. Our guests are Dellwyn Stuart and Irihapeti Edwards, campaigners and advocates for pay transparency and equality in Aotearoa.
Dellwyn is CEO of YWCA Auckland and Co-founder of MindTheGap. With 30 years' experience in corporate and private business, she is passionate about gender equality and is driven to help amplify the voices of young wāhine.
Irihapeti (Ngāti Manawa, Ngāti Hikairo, Ngāti Awa, Te Arawa, Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Whātua ki Kaipara) is a young wahine Māori who works in the finance sector. She is a keen advocate of human and indigenous rights and is passionate about community engagement, cultural representation, female empowerment and education.
Dellwyn and Irihapeti talk about their work at MindTheGap and what drives their passion for closing the gender pay gap. They leave us with practical tips for how we can all be part of the movement for a more equal society.
In the words of Dellwyn, we all have power to make change. “All change does really begin with conversation. You are entitled to be curious and to have that conversation.”

Anya Satyanand has spent the last two decades on a haphazard journey that's been all about equipping, emboldening and inspiring young people, entrepreneurs and leaders to actively create a more hopeful world. She is a recovering teacher, an erstwhile youth worker, and an independent director of an ethical investment company.
In her work for Leadership New Zealand, Anya supports, equips, empowers and inspires people who are interested in growing the future of Aotearoa - a future that is just and abundant, peaceful and participatory.
Anya talks about:
The challenges and urgency of being a leader todayHer professional crisis of becoming a parentHow appointing a personal board can help you grow in your career
🎙 “I have ended up in this place some days I think by accident, but most days I think because I believe in this work of resourcing , acknowledging, affirming, encouraging, inspiring leaders about their own capacity to be the change that needs to happen in the world right now."