Did you talk to 30,000 people a year when you were 20 years old?

GirlBossNZ is a social enterprise working to empower women into careers in leadership, entrepreneurship, and STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics).

When Alexia met with Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth last year, as the youngest ever recipient of the Queens Young Leader Award, her message was “There are more CEO’s named John than women on the New Zealand stock exchange but don’t worry me and the other young girls working with me are going to change that”. She told this story with the straightest of faces to a room full of engaged students from local high schools attending GirlBossNZ workshops at Hamilton Girls High School last week. 

Girls who shared with ease their own thoughts and spoke of their aspirations on the topic of careers and STEM, seemingly relating to this young woman at the front of the room who talked about her humble upbringing, her love of PowerPoint, not being popular at school, and how she started GirlBoss at the age of 16.

“What percentage of the worlds top CEO’s are women?”, continues Alexia, and goes onto to reveal that it is 4.1% after which she says “and you’re going to change that”.

The opportunity to have GirlBossNZ workshops in Hamilton, attended by ten different schools and kura, was organised by the Ministry of Education and in collaboration with KiwiBank the Waikato Chamber of Commerce also organised an opportunity for the wider public and business community to hear Alexia speak at an evening event on the topic of Next Generation Leadership.

The morning workshops targeted girls from Year 9 – 11 and provided an opportunity to hear stories of women leading careers in STEM, get hands-on with robots, and to walk away with tools to support them in building their own self-confidence and how they can leverage their strengths to take on whatever career roles they desire. 

Alongside presenting more statistics a key message was that technology is an enabler and technology skills can allow you to reach and impact a larger audience across sectors and around areas and topics that people are passionate about.  

“There is nothing wrong with not knowing what job title you want buts its important to always come from a place of passion and purposes when giving your elevator pitch” Alexia told the group of Year 11 – 13 girls that arrived for the afternoon session for a workshop focused on leadership and how to network and what Alexia calls “How to make your ask” referring to the need for women to be strategic when talking to people who can open doors for them.   

Alexia talked about the need for women to be “pro bragging” and the workshop went on to cover interview skills during which the girls actively engaged in practicing how to answer when asked about their strengths and a three-step formula Alexia shared for responding to the second most asked interview question – what are your weaknesses? Talk briefly about weaknesses that aren’t a key part of the job, how are you already working on these, and end on a happy note.

“The question isn’t trying to trip you up” explained Alexia, “the heart of the question is to identify if you are a person with initiative that tries to improve and adapt”.

Importantly Alexia also spoke of the role social media plays in recruitment and career development, advising the girls to register for and create a professional LinkedIn profile and to clean up anything on other social media that they wouldn’t want a prospective employer to see. 

Comments from school staff and students were positive.

“The students were fizzing in the van on our return to school. I'm looking forward to having a debrief with them so that we can put some action points in place”

“Many thanks for the opportunity. Feedback from the girls was very positive and also helped us identify some support we need to put into place for these students.”

CultivateIT and the Ministry of Education have been working on a number of initiatives in the area of supporting schools with the digital technologies curriculum including developing additional opportunities to help young people in building soft skills and to facilitate connections with industry where those skills can be exercised to take up internships and work experience placements. 

Later this year, in response to interest from staff and students attending the workshops, the Ministry of Education and CultivateIT will co-host a networking event for senior high school students to connect with local technology and technology-enabled businesses, to support the development of pathways to STEM careers. 

“Thank you so much for facilitating the course today. The girls were buzzing on the ride back to kura. I am looking forward to both future events we discussed today and doing our student-led workshops”

Businesses that are interested in participating can contact CultivateIT Operations Manager Jannat Maqbool  Jannat.Maqbool@cultivateit.nz