PMI New Zealand Chapter
International Women's Month
The PMINZ Board wish to celebrate all women in the project management profession across all industries and sectors
during the annual International Women’s Month (March).
Meet some of the inspirational women involved with PMINZ below.
From Joy Wendt
Kia ora! I am Joy, and I am a Senior Advisor at Wellington City Council and a volunteer at the Project Management Institute NZ. With over five years of experience managing a diverse range of projects, I have overseen the delivery of various products such as annual report, IT deployments, events and stakeholder engagements. My experience extends to working with organisations in both the public sector and non-profit sectors, where I have collaborated with teams to achieve project success.
I have a passion for projects because they have the power to make things better. Whether it’s implementing something new, upgrading existing systems, or making improvements to business-as-usual operations, projects have the potential to create positive change. I relish the entire project journey, from its planning to completion, because of the people I get to collaborate with, the skills I acquire, and the milestones we work towards together.
For women who are interested in pursing a career in project management, my advice is to embrace challenges and see them as opportunities to grow and develop your skills. Every project presents unique challenges, and by embracing them, you can become a more confident and capable project manager.
From Carol Speirs
Projects take a lot of organising and collaboration. I believe that my skill set encompasses planning, organising and talking to stakeholders about the vision of the project. My skills give me the ability to network, learn from others and provide motivation to others to encourage them to contribute to the project I am leading.
While these skills and attributes aren’t necessarily aligned to my gender they do help me achieve the project’s objectives. With 26 years of experience I have come across all sorts of people in the project world. I think that whatever gender you are, you can always learn something from each project. For me the fact that each project is unique is a challenge – and what makes the role interesting. There is a joy to working with others to get things done, get things moving in a new direction or solve a problem. As mentioned above, collaboration with a variety of teams and clients makes the project management process energising.
From Samantha Samuel
Kia Ora. My name is Samantha Samuel. I began the project management journey about 12 years ago. I currently work for Fonterra Cooperative as a Technical Projects Manager.
What I like about project management is the structured approach to running successful projects. The skills and certification I obtained along the way has given me the ability to switch industries as the project management skills are transferable to almost any environment. I enjoy the career because it feels like every project is like getting a new job. I love the variety of problems I have to solve, and the variety of people I get to work with.
It is a field that challenges my thinking and drives me to understand more efficient ways of working and innovative ways to solve problems. It is very rewarding to look on a completed project and say to myself: “I can’t believe I did that”. But I did.
