To be precise
QWhat is your job? General manager Cardrona Alpine Resort. It is a privileged position where I get to work with, lead and grow the amazing Cardrona whanau as we deliver the best experiences we can with our maunga. It is about getting the best people we can into the right roles and supporting them so they can perform. It is about making the right decisions for our people and our place now and for the future.
QWhat jobs did you do before this one? I was a ski instructor/coach/trainer and worked multiple backtoback seasons before moving into management at Cardrona. I stepped from snowsports manager to services manager and then general manager shortly after Real Journeys acquired Cardrona. I also started 47 Frocks (a fashion store in Wanaka) and operated it for five years before selling it in 2015.
QWhy did you choose this job? It was accidental. I arrived in this job based on a real passion for the industry, saying yes to all opportunities (thinking about it later) and constantly striving towards making things better.
QHow did you get into it and when? I started teaching skiing at Mount Dobson while I was at university (I grew up in Lake Tekapo). During the early years, I taught skiing so I could ski yearround and all over the world. I was also competing in extreme skiing events internationally for about five years. I stepped through my ski instructor qualifications and each season just kept getting better and more inspired — so I never wanted to leave.
QWhat qualifications and training do you need? My experience in the mountains and on snow has come through years of working in them and in multiple resorts. This is really hard to gain, but helps so much with decision making, curiosity and ingenuity. I have a physical education degree from the University of Otago, completed a postgraduate diploma in business excellence If you were not doing this job, what would you be doing?
Probably working in fashion — I love it!
What did you want to be when you were 10?
A skier.
What should 10yearolds aspire to today?
Love themselves, play and stretch their imaginations. Be completely open and honest and learn to speak your truth no matter what it is. Always be kind.
Name one thing you would change about your job?
Nothing. I love it. I can make it whatever I want it to be.
Do you get weekends and public holidays off?
Yes, when we are not operating it is pretty civilised.
QWhat personal skills do you need? Confidence in your beliefs, grit, hustle, kindness, a desire to be the best person you can be, creativity, a curious or listening and learning nature, a little bit crazy, but always able to judge when gravitas is required.
QAny physical requirements? You have to understand your product, so to ski and bike is really important. You have to be able to join the crew and work alongside them, which requires strength and fitness. It is a very social industry, so you have to be good with burning the candle at both ends.
QWhat do you do on a daily basis? I spend most of my day communicating: planning, presenting, training, leading, learning, finding solutions, decision making, considering opportunities, working on weaker areas, driving the good stuff, meetings with different groups of management and leadership, team building . . . What is
most challenging aspect?
People relationships. They are important to everything we do.
Are there any
health and safety issues?
Running an alpine resort is high risk. Our job is to ensure the freedom from unnecessary risk.
To do this, safety and safe decision making is embedded in our culture. It is just the way we do things around here and it is cool to be as safe as. We have a structure that means safety is in all of our roles from strategy through to operational and frontline. We have a safety manager for the resort whose portfolio is to focus solely on this. They are supported with a health and safety adviser, who drives the culture and manages all compliance.
Our risk is identified and we work through all of this to reduce them and manage them as much as possible.
We empower our people to say ‘‘no’’, speak up and always make the right decisions.
The wellbeing of our whanau is a high priority and our people and performance department are the main voice for this. Their role is simply to make sure we have the happiest and most inspiring workforce possible.
QWhat is the most interesting part of your job? When our people deliver the magic. I love the delights that they can creatively come up with and watching the pride on their face when they deliver it. This is in all areas of our operation. I love to watch people grow and learn and mature and really get passionate about something. I love seeing people engage emotionally with what they are doing or learning and whatever that is becomes life changing.
Working for Real Journeys has put another layer into things for me. We have developed discipline, strong business acumen and robust questioning for decision making. This was needed for us to really take the steps we have over the past year and where we are going in the future.
QHow has the job changed since you started? So much learning. Our culture is the only thing that hasn’t changed as we have gone through significant growth, massive change and developed business discipline.
What’s something people generally don’t
about the job?
Our kids come to work with us. Them and our families are considered part of our whanau. When you join Cardrona it’s all in! It is a community, rather than a workspace.
What are the highs of the job?
everyday. Watching people do something creative and succeeding.
QWhat are the lows of the job? The end of the winter always makes me feel sad. Its like a completely different life outside the winter operating months.
What’s the strangest thing you’ve had to
Spend the whole day sitting down at the computer.
Where will you be 10 years from now?
the opportunities take me.
What part does technology play in your job?
Innovation with technology will make our lives so much easier. We will get way better information for our decisionmaking and management. We will be able to work much smarter and more efficiently. We will be able to deliver digital communication for our people in a way that matches our culture and is seamless for our guests.
How clever and creative we are in this area is our key to being the first movers and being able to do things differently with the way we communicate in the digital space. We want to change expected transactional processing into meaningful relationships.