Māua ko Te Taurapa Tūhono- NZTE and me | Our aligned kaupapa

This month's #NZTEandMe spotlight is a shared kōrero – featuring Rangi Ririnui (Ngāi te Rangi, Ngāti Ranginui, Te Arawa), our Investment Director Māori, and Rhea Cowell (Waikato-Tainui, Ngāti Porou), Customer Manager, both part of the wider Te Pora Māori team at New Zealand Trade and Enterprise / Te Taurapa Tūhono.

Rangi and Rhea both featured in the recent documentary Three Māori Boys Go Global, which shared the story of NZTE customer 3 Māori Boys and their path towards international growth.

We spoke to Rangi and Rhea about their own unique experiences of life at Te Taurapa Tūhono and how they view our values and kaupapa mahi alongside their own sense of purpose. 

1. How have you seen manaakitanga demonstrated at Te Taurapa Tūhono?

Rhea: I think NZTE’s super power is its people and this shone through strongly through those I met before I started and continues on today. Understanding if I was right for NZTE and if it was right for me was really important to me, and through the way in which people reached out to welcome me before I started, the mihi whakatau on my first day and so many interactions since, I think manaaki is a core character in how we behave at NZTE. We are a purpose-driven organisation and team-focussed, and that is demonstrated in the way you are welcomed in.

Rangi: For me, manaaki is about building up other people’s mana, and we do that at NZTE by building up the mana of our customers.  Thinking about 3 Māori Boys and others, we invested in their capability and connectivity and building them up from the conceptual stage to the point where they needed to be to execute their goals. So that is where I see us showing manaaki, when we are building up the mana of our customers.

I was taught that building up the mana of others is how you build up your own mana. I see this embodied at NZTE.

Rhea: It’s about meeting people where they are at. With 3 Māori Boys we needed to connect the right people to help build their mana – us and external advisors. Lots of work goes into bringing in the right people to stretch and grow our customers in the right way.

We are passionate about working to support New Zealand companies, but they are not our businesses, so we have to earn the right to guide them and build that rapport. It’s their lives and livelihoods, and their future generations, and they are impacted by the risks they take, so we can’t just tell them what to do with their money. We meet them where they are at.

Rangi: Agreed, you can’t tell Māori what to do – if you do it’s not going to work! You need to earn their trust and respect first.

Rhea: Working with Māori in New Zealand and across international markets, it’s really important that we respect and uphold the wide variety of cultures of everyone in the room so we all feel safe. This means you really need to put in the time to get to know who you are working with, what is important to them and who and what they are representing.

2. How is Te Taurapa Tūhono’s purpose aligned with your purpose as a person?

Rangi: My family has a history of supporting Māori development in different contexts – commercial, social, political, health and so on. When I was young, growing up, everyone would do their bit or had the ambition to do so in their field eventually. I’m in the commercial field so that’s where I can contribute.

It took me some time to get to this point though, I was apprehensive about looking to contribute to Māori without having the knowledge and skills to do so effectively. After working in the commercial space for around 10 years and getting comfortable around NZTE’s work aligning with my own purpose, I made the leap.

I’m not attached to our brand but instead to our people. I knew some people at NZTE before joining that I knew were legit that gave me comfort in moving to NZTE – if that wasn’t there I wouldn’t have joined. Our purpose and our words are brought to life by the people.

Rhea: When first exploring a role at NZTE I was attracted to the purpose and our characters and value, I love that it’s an organisation that actually lives and breathes those values. We have a purpose to support companies on their journey, for free, and we’re here to help grow and enhance the growth of companies in all aspects, not just financial.

I’m a member of our Te Pora Māori group, but my day-to-day role isn’t just to support Māori businesses and I’ve found it interesting how non-Māori businesses contribute to Māori development too. I was fortunate to be able to work on the 3 Māori Boys mahi with Rangi, as NZTE has the flexibility to meet Māori exporters where they are at so I was bought onboard to support. It’s not just Māori businesses or our Te Pora Māori team that have a role in growing the Māori economy, we all need to be purposeful in leading this mahi.

3. What has your career at Te Taurapa Tūhono been like so far? What have been the opportunities you have had to honour your purpose?

Rhea: In one word, diverse. It’s such a privilege to build trusted relationships with New Zealand companies, bringing my own knowledge and experience and that of our global team together to collaborate and grow. I enjoy being able to help grow those around me at the same time as learning even more in return, because our team bring with them a wealth of knowledge and experience from other organisations and cultures into NZTE.

It’s great to be able to work in an organisation where your work is purposeful and you can see the positive impact it has on New Zealand, and how New Zealand is supported by the work that NZTE does.

Getting to connect and work alongside colleagues from across the world is a really special part of the role. For those that have started during Covid sometimes they may not have ever been to New Zealand, so it’s a really important that we support them to build their connections and knowledge of New Zealand and in particular that of the Māori economy and culture.

Rangi: My NZTE career has been busy, starting as an Investment Manager and now an Investment Director. I came in when the Māori investment team was new, so our purpose as individuals formed the foundation of what our team’s purpose is. We are a  group of people with a passion for Māori economic development who believe that what’s best Māori is also best for New Zealand.

What really motivates me is the work we do with Iwi and Māori Land Trusts. Naturally we help commercial companies in export markets, but what we have done and our core proposition has changed in the past few years. We’re now really connected with larger Māori organisations. I spend about 80 percent of my week speaking with different Iwi representatives– that’s what gets me up in the morning because I can see how these conversations can develop to positively impact not only Māori, but all of New Zealand.

One great example of some really impactful work we’ve done with Iwi was supporting Kānoa’s $6 million investment in the Te Huata Mussel Spat Hatchery in Te Kaha, near Ōpōtiki. The social and economic impact that this investment can have – for a pretty deprived area – made me feel really good and was a privilege to be part of.

4. Why are you proud to call Te Taurapa Tūhono your place of work?

Rangi: I’m proud to work at NZTE and of the work I do. People often approach me to ask if I was involved in an investment that they’ve seen in the media that impacted Māori. It makes me feel proud to be able to say yes in a lot of those conversations.

I’ve done lots of big commercial deals and you feel pretty flash, but it doesn’t necessarily resonate with me as a Māori like the work I did for the hatchery at Te Kaha. NZTE gives me a vessel to do this work beyond what I would have been able to do in a purely commercial role.

Rhea: I’m here for the culture. You can ask people anything as NZTE is a collaborative, curious environment – I’ve just come from a company-wide learning session that was run by our General Manager International. You can knock on anyone’s door to learn. You can learn and you can challenge – people are up for your opinions and open to change. We listen.

When we did 3 Māori Boys it was great for people to see the breath of what NZTE does, and that it’s not just big NZ companies being supported, it’s companies with global ambitions and commitments no matter the size. Success looks different here; it’s not just about the money but the broader positive social, environmental and cultural impacts too. The alignment to our purpose is real.

We like to cut through the titles, the hierarchy and job spec. At Te Taurapa Tūhono we’ll support you to grow with an outward focus – we like to walk with you, rather than telling you what we want you to be.  

Rangi: We like to make it simple for our customers. Basically, I move money from one place to another – and I do it fast. They don’t need to know my title is Investment Director, as long as we’re supporting them in the right way.

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To learn more about NZTE / Te Taurapa Tūhono or to discuss job opportunities, please connect with Katrina Meldrum, Director of Talent Acquisition or Rangi and Rhea directly on LinkedIn. Or check out Careers at NZTE to read more about our job opportunities, culture, values and our people.