Tui Te Hau
Programme Manager | BA, Rongomaiwahine, Te Arawa, Tuwharetoa
E: tui.tehau@creativehq.co.nz
P:
About Tui
Tui brings a varied background to her role as Creative HQ Programme Manager. She has worked in women’s affairs, Maori affairs, export consultancy, business training and education and she single-handedly established the Melbourne office for Trade NZ in 2000.
As Trade Commissioner, she was a one-woman commando; dropped in and left to establish a fully functioning office from scratch. During her three-year posting, Tui held responsibility for various Australian sectors such as plastics and chemicals, hardware, farming products and apparel. The latter was a sector of which she became particularly fond, and her trans-Tasman experience in the apparel sector has resonated throughout the rest of her career.
"The first idea might not be the one that flies, but the next one might"
Tui started her incubation journey as chair of the Fashion HQ Advisory Group, before taking on the role of Fashion HQ Incubator Manager. In her current job, Tui’s role is to work on the business of Creative HQ; the big picture vision of the incubator’s objectives, structuring of the programme outcomes and the conception and development of new programmes.
Tui sites the design and development of the Activate programme as a major achievement. Activate is now a Grow Wellington programme that allows an entrepreneur to test their business idea over 16 weeks.
"The design of Activate was very deliberate. It invests in the development of the entrepreneur as much as their idea. The first idea might not be the one that flies, but the next one might"
During her time in incubation Tui has seen a lot, “building a high growth business takes guts and it’s not always the loudest or fastest who succeed. It’s the ones with a strong vision, a clear path and the determination to go the distance”.
Tui was appointed to the Maori Trade Marks Advisory Committee for the Intellectual Property Office of New Zealand in 2004 and she runs her own consultancy, Bird Island Ltd, which runs business training programmes for apparel companies. A busy mum to son Te Rino, she can often be found at Junglerama and the zoo.
