North Shore Times (New Zealand)
Mum uses expertise to help families
A Takapuna mum has set up twin businesses to improve the wellbeing of young children and their families.
Hannah Gentile started her two online businesses, catering to the parents of under 5-year-olds, as a way to work for herself after facing pressures of being a working mum in a professional world.
The 31-year-old once worked at World Vision in Australia, looking after early childhood care and development in remote Aboriginal communities.
But, after the birth of her daughter Sofia, who is now 3, Gentile decided to set up her own venture and return home to New Zealand to see both her child and business grow.
‘‘I got to a point where I didn’t want to do a nine to five. I didn’t want to work in a business where I was constantly devalued or constantly watched to see when I was having the next kid,’’ she said.
Gentile opened Nourished by Nature, a nutrition advice service that pulled on her experience at World Vision, as well as her master’s degree in human nutrition.
The bulk of the work is consulting with mothers trying to conceive, and parents who have children with allergies or who are fussy eaters.
In October, she and husband David decided to add another business to their brand.
Nurture Box is a delivery box service for toys and books. There is an extra option within the service of a Book Box subscription, which sends a baby book and a picture book to the door every month.
Gentile said inspiration for her work came as she looked around and saw a lot of families like hers both parents working, time poor but wanting to provide a healthy environment for their kids.
She works four days at the Waitemata District Health Board, and invests about 20 hours of her week into her business.
‘‘A lot of what I do is around making some of that development stuff around age group easy for parents,’’ she said.
Gentile said she thought society was benefiting from online businesses, as they socialised different ways of earning money, doing business and running a household.
‘‘There’s flexibility in how we work now,’’ she said.
‘‘Our value is not being in a workplace for x number of hours, but our value is in the outcome we produce from that.’’