The Waikato Pacific Business Network officially launched last month, but it’s already eight years old. The founder of this established network said the journey to the launch date had been a long time coming.

Meleane Burgess noticed a gap in the Waikato for Pacific businesses to network and grow together back in 2012. 

She’d just finished studying at Waikato University and had entered the workforce as a qualified accountant in Hamilton.

It was then she started wondering where the Pacific businesses were.

Not knowing where to look, Meleane decided to start a group called the Samoan Business Network. 

“Because I’m Samoan myself and I thought, rather than going big, we should focus on just the one island so we can identify how we fit into the market.”

She held a networking event. It was an after 5 nibbles and drinks style event and she said three Samoan businesses turned up. 

“There was a need identified that assistance needed to be provided to Pacific business owners. There was assistance like this set up in other places in the country, but Waikato at the time had been over looked.

“From 2012 to 2015 we started to grow and we had more people coming. The idea was if two new people came to each event then the profile would grow. And that’s what happened. It grew to a point where we had to formally establish to get the benefit to our people.

“It’s been a journey to get to where we are now,” said I’m the founder and chairperson of the Waikato Pacific Business Network.

Meleane said the group got a lot of interest from other island nations as they started to grow. 

“Tongans started coming, Fijians started coming, and so on. So, we thought we should change our name and be more inclusive because we were the only group in the Waikato like this for Pacific businesses.”

She said the aim was to give people the confidence to take business to the next level and to do that they needed bigger more experienced businesses to mentor smaller ones.

“We now have mentors and business growth advisors. And in 2016 we changed our name. We just officially launched a few weeks ago, as we wanted to have everything in place.”

The launch was held at the Waikato Innovation Park earlier in May and Meleane said she was really pleased with the turn out as it was a full house with more than 100 people made up of many locals and Aucklanders.

The Minister for Pacific People's, Aupito Su'a William Sio, gave the keynote address to officially launch the network.

Meleane said it wasn’t until last year in December that the network became an incorporated society.

“We got an executive committee to continue to make relationships. We’ve always had amazing sponsors to help us along the way and we’ve had some amazing events.

“It’s providing a collective voice to change the perception of Pacific Islanders – we are driven people.”

She said the network had an event once every quarter and each was centered around the vision is to grow and connect Pacific businesses in the Waikato.

“We don’t want to recreate the wheel, we just want to let people know what’s already out there and help them jump on it. Pacifica does exist, it’s about encouraging our businesses to have the confidence to get a mentor and expand. For them some of them it is scary or foreign.

“We would like to see growth, stability, and create more wealth, those are the three objectives. It’s about growing together and being more connected as a community as whole.

“We are just starting, and if you make that start, you never know what could happen.

“I’ve always said the Waikato should have a network for Pacific Islanders and now it’s thriving.”

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