Business Leaders Find Gold with Young Maori Employees

Corporate and organisation leaders from across Auckland gathered at Ngati Whatua’s Orakei Marae to join Prime Minister John Key and Minister of Maori Affairs Pita Sharples in assessing progress being made by the Business Iwi Consortium.

The Prime Minister pointed out the Business Iwi Consortium was an initiative that came out of the Job Summit.
Convenor, Auckland business leader Sir Ron Carter, detailed how young Maori were being identified as they came through tertiary institutions and were introduced to potential employers and mentors through a range of cadetships and internships.

Sir Ron said the purpose of the initiative is to connect business with Maori organisations for mutual benefit.

“Companies are realising the potential that exists within the $16 billion Maori economy and Maori organisations are wanting to get their graduates into positions where they can develop careers, so we have a common purpose. “

He said the Consortium is finding employers are seeing value in having Maori on staff that can operate within the demands of their chosen profession and also provide their employer organisation with greater engagement and understanding of Maori.

“We were lucky to have a number of young people present to us about their training and career paths. One could only be impressed with the motivation and quality of these people.”

He said Te Puni Kokori identified this opportunity and asked the Committee for Auckland to develop the programme and manage it for them.

“As chairman of the committee I am proud to be involved with this innovation and for the professional way that we have engaged with Maori and business to make this happen.

Ngati Whatua o Orakei Maori Trust Board Chairman Grant Hawke says while discussions around education often focus on what is called the ‘deficit’ in education of Maori, this Business Iwi Consortium has the potential to focus on the successes that are also happening. We are getting graduates coming through and now we are working together to ensure they are placed on the right path to succeed.

“What was evident at the meeting was the generosity and commitment of these corporate leaders to engage with us in a very tangible and productive way.

“The way I saw it the two groups in our wharenui were not Maori and Pakeha, rather there was one group of younger, enthusiastic, people who had recently trained in something, and the second group was older, more experienced people from a range of organisations saying ‘How can we help you get to where you want to go and where we need to you go.”

Prime Minister John Key listened intently to the stories of each student and then made the observation that probably the best that could be done for these people now was to provide them with connections that will enable them to advance as they wish to.

“We know there is a very rapidly growing Maori business community. We are seeing increasing success rates for Maori in education. Now the missing piece is the integration of Maori people into mainstream business.

“We are interested in getting a lot more Maori working in mainstream businesses and they in turn will be role models for others coming through.”

He said if we are going to bring a lot more Maori through education and training of various kinds we have to make sure we are doing it properly and ensure we give them introductions and ongoing pastoral support after their training is finished.

The Business Iwi Initiative works with Ngati Whatua and Waikato Tainui and will soon add more iwi to the programmes.