Celebration of Tauranga Accentuated WoC Leadership programme

Last week, we celebrated the graduation of the first ever Tauranga Accentuated cohort. Thank you for all your tautoko for the women graduating and the cause. Nothing sums up the celebration better than this whakatauki: “He aha te kai a te rangatira? He kōrero, he kōrero, he kōrero.”

For the last six months, the four participants Awhina Ngātuere (CEO of Toi Kai Rawa), Esther Martin (CEO of Pacific Island Community Trust Bay of Plenty), Hazel Tutt (Marketing and Product Manager at Hato Hone St John) and Karen Gibney (Latin American community leader) had four in-person full-day workshops and online coaching sessions. They defined their authentic leadership identity and vision, embraced their cultural backgrounds as unique advantages, cultivated confident mindsets and habits.

Awhina spoke about her experience in the programme, stating: “I knew Accentuated is not for the faint-hearted when Suki gave me a preview of the content. I knew if I wanted to get the most out of this opportunity, I needed to invest in it. Throughout the programme, I made space for reflections, dug deep and challenged my thinking and self-talk. Now, I have gained a new sense of confidence. I know what I bring to the table and I value that. I have done a lot of professional development and leadership courses and this is by far the best one.”

Hazel talked about how family is an integral part of who she is as a leader. She recognises the sacrifices her mother has made by bringing the family from the Philippines to Aotearoa New Zealand. She also sees her team members as family and does her best to enable their development. Through Accentuated, she was able to have the safe space to talk about the challenges that she has faced as a woman of colour and choose a new way of responding.

Esther spoke about learning to adapt her leadership style to suit the situation and people. Coming from a Samoan background and being a chief’s daughter, Esther has learnt to be a servant leader from a young age. Esther is used to meeting everybody else’s needs before her own and being softly spoken, she has often found her boundaries being crossed. Through Accentuated, Esther learnt to honour and communicate her needs and boundaries.

Karen wanted to join Accentuated because she wanted to become a more confident leader for the Latin American community. Although everyone in the community acknowledged and praised her leadership, she felt something was missing inside. Karen described her experience of the programme to be akin to taking the red or blue pill. There was no turning back and she made sure she put in the work since day 1. She delved deep into her upbringing to examine her pattern of behaviour. She learnt to be kinder to herself. As a result, she has become a lot more internally confident. No more second-guessing or masking herself to fit into other people’s expectations or moulds. It has been so powerful that she started having monthly sessions with her Latin American committee to share her learnings and discuss how they can empower each other.

Both Esther and Karen were so grateful of their scholarships awarded by Tauranga City Council and Western Bay of Plenty’s Welcoming Communities, and Tauranga Salesforce.com consulting partner Cinch & Strike. It is also a fact that if it weren’t for our sponsors’ tautoko and participants’ belief in Accentuated, we wouldn’t have had the programme in Tauranga. So thank you!

After the participants have shared their journeys, we had a kōrero and workshop on how to support women of colour to rise. We loved how one audience group rephrased the question to “How do we move out of the way to make space for women of colour to rise?”. Another audience group highlighted the importance to deliberately seek out stories like these, make it a safe space for women of colour to share and leaders role-modelling what listening actually means.

Other suggestions were to build inclusion into the strategic plan, examine how we are defining merit and promoting people, and deliberately invest in the success of women of colour and support their potential. This goes without saying that we need to see the whole person, not the stereotypes plus be mindful of the space we are taking up and educate ourselves rather than expecting BIPOC to educate us.

Thank you to all those who came to celebrate with us in person and also in spirit. The next round of Accentuated is starting again across the motu and we do need your tautoko to spread the word and get women of colour supported into the programme.

About Accentuated

Unlike other leadership programmes, Accentuated is designed by women of colour for women of colour to step into their authentic leadership identity and power.

Over four in-person full-day workshops and online coaching sessions over six months, you'll:

Define your authentic leadership and purpose, explore what makes you unique as a leader, and how cultural backgrounds are an asset.
Cultivate a confident mindset so that you are no longer battling with the imposter syndrome or any minimising self-talks and work habits
Shine brighter by learning to communicate your value clearly, influence fearlessly and handle stereotyping and racism
Expand your network and lead by example to build up the next generation of diverse leaders.

The Accentuated in-person workshop dates

Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland
Tues 7 November, Tues 12 December, Tues 13 February and Tues 12 March

Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington
Wed 15 November, Thurs 14 December, Thurs 8 February and Thurs 7 March

Ōtautahi Christchurch
Fri 20 October, Fri 1 December, Thurs 15 February, Fri 15 March

Tauranga
Tues 21 November, Tues 19 December, Tues 20 February and Tues 19 March

Kirikiriroa Hamilton
Taking Expressions of Interest.

One partial scholarship available now in each region.

suki xiaoApril 20, 2023