Black Heels and Tractor Wheels - Presented by Rural Women New ZealandHayley Gourley joins us on the Black Heels and Tractor Wheels Podcast this week!
Hayley hails from a dairy farm on the West Coast, and has had roles in Skellerup, Pāmu, Rabobank and Environment Canterbury to name a few.
Hayley has spent her career in the food and agribusiness sector, and is extremely passionate about all things Agri.
Hayley talks to us about selling yourself, acknowledging your weaknesses, being calm under pressure, and the changing face of the sector.
#blackheelsandtractorwheels #podcast #ruralwomennz
Thank you so much for joining us Hayley!
Welcome to season six. So the Black Heels and tractoriis podcasts brought to you by us in Real Women, New Zealand.
This season, on the podcast, we are interviewing the ogs, the badass ladies of the agricultural world, the ones who, in my case, you might see at a conference get all nervous and flustered, might embarrass yourself in front of them, because that's that amazing.
The theme of this season is the big stuff, the juicy topics, like how they got into leadership positions, what it means to be a CEO, how you add value around a board table, and has the agricultural industry actually changed does it even like females? All these things and more this season and these ladies do not hold back.
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The I Guess the first of the stot.
The founding question here is what should we know about you that has made you or shaped who you are today.
What's a bit of your background.
The biggest thing that's shaped me as being a West Coaster. I'm proud of being a West Coaster, and although I haven't lived there for more decades than I care to remember, it's still actually what I think is the foundation of who I am because it's shaped my affinity with agriculture.
It shaped the way that.
I think about things in terms of I think being relatable, and it's just that grounding I mean to me, I come from the West Coast.
I'm proud of it.
But it does mean you never forget you know where you come from, that small town syndrome piece, and that doesn't matter whether you're in a big city or you have what's perceived as being a big job or whatever. Actually I'm a dairy farmer's daughter from the West Coast.
That's it.
That's such a great point that you make around the grounding, and I guess having that affinity with others from all walks and shapes of life that comes in really handy obviously, and in terms of so your career highlights, if you just want to give us a quick snapshot really of where you started, so we grew up on the West coast.
First job right through to where you are today.
Sure, I'll make it a potted history. First job was an accidental banker. I was a bank teller, and that was I really needed a job because otherwise I was going to have to go back home and work on the farm, and unemployment was really high when I left school, and university fees had just been introduced, and I actually wanted to be an Air Force pilot, and that particular year the government shutdown pilot training as well.
So I couldn't join the Air Force and be a pilot.
So I needed to get a job, and I needed to get one quickly, and I thought banking sounds really good. They gave you a uniform, it was a nice clean job, so it was better than milking cows.
And that was where I ended up.
Which was actually great because I learned all sorts of things about how people manage their finances or don't manage their finances, you know, some of those basics in life that I just learned through banking, which was great. Also obviously dealing with people in the general public, and so from that point of view, it was a really.
Good introduction to the workforce. Until we got robbed.
That really then changed my view of banking and I decided that actually being so public facing wasn't such a good idea and moved more into management roles and more analytical roles, and in particular that was where I first started dealing with farmers from a banking perspective, which was just wonderful.
It blended a whole lot of things that I enjoyed about.
Working tired in really well with obviously my how had grown up and the people that I'd associated with there.
So I've worked my.
Way through a number of you know, banking roles, found out what I enjoyed, and really found out that I liked working with the primary industries in particular, and then, like most people, eventually, although a little bit later than most, decided I wanted to go overseas. So heading overseas was really out into the big wide world and was really fortunate. Never thought that this would happen. That ended up working for an agricultural bank in the middle of London, which was with Rubbobank, and that was like everything just sort of happened then. That was great and a fortunate series of events that exposed me to post farm gate business, commodity trading in particular, international finance, a lot of you know, a lot of things that frowned upon a little bit in the banking world today that's sort of gone out of the vernacular, things like structured finance and leveraged finance and all these transactions that are not not really done these days anymore.
So that was really good.
But it was from there that I realized the analytical side was really what I enjoyed, as well as the people aspect and the opportunity to come back to New Zealand sort of in a.
Similar role to what you have now, Emma.
That's evolved a lot in the last fifteen years or so, almost twenty years, but that was really my happy place in terms of enabled me to have a lot of flexibility, a lot of autonomy, engaging from one end of the value chain to the other, while also having my children. So that was ten years that a career advisor would say, don't do ten years in the same job. I didn't think it was the same job because it wasn't. It evolved so much over that period of time and grew so much that it wasn't the same role. But I didn't want to give up something I enjoyed doing so much just for any role and the opportunity to then move into the commercial side of the business, and as general manager of Country Banking was blending all of those things and more. But wait, there's more. You know, managing a profit and loss and managing the commercial side of the business and leading the commercial side of the business was great, but you reach an agent stage of Korea where you get pigeonholed potentially as a banker for life, and I realized that that was a very real danger for me. So branching out, you know, from banking, and never would have thought I'd end up in manufacturing, but again blended a number of things that I was looking for in terms of the role I now have at Scaler Up, where I can run an international business from a New Zealand home base of manufacturing and some key brands here in New Zealand as a great blend of a whole lot of things and being a very steep learning curve for me, but one that I've enjoyed a lot.
I'm really interested if you don't mind sharing a little bit with us about these kind of the things that you've been able to take forward into your new role at scaler up and how they compare what's different to what you were doing in your role as country manager at rather Bank, Because you're right in that it's kind of a similar industry but you're actually doing similar things. I'm interested in those transferrable skills and kind of what you need to be successful in that new role.
Yeah, communication and relating to people as fundamental, and from that point of view, understanding those differences is key. I mean bankers and particularly the relationship bankers at Rabobank has different ways of working and different needs from for example, people who work in the factory here making very good products you know, every day, but actually they still need to understand why they're doing it, why it's important, you know, what can be improved upon. Those things are all common and similar, So it's just that relatability and communication. And I'd say the other key critical thing from my perspective between the two roles has been that understanding of the agricultural value chain, particularly right back to the farmer and actually how farmers make decisions by business people, but they do have a different set of considerations when they're making decisions whether animals people, you know, the list is very long for farmers, but how they make decisions is really critical to the businesses who are trying to service them.
What do you think would be your one pivotal moment across your career that has led you to the biggest opportunity.
There's probably be a few pivotal moments, but I don't know that one particularly stands out more than the others. Because I'm an opportunist, there's no grand plan. So the first one I mentioned was when I was working in a retail branch that got robbed, because you know, that made me decide, actually, I don't want to be across a counter from the general public, and that led me to go down on the sort of analytical and the relationship management route with farmers and agricultural businesses. So I'd say that was pivotal deciding to come back to New Zealand into a newly created role that probably certainly provided the greatest opportunity because it was a blank canvas and I could shape that within reason how I wanted to shape it, so in terms of the biggest opportunity. But then the bank giving me the opportunity to move into people leadership in such a big way was a risk for them, but moving into the commercial side of the business was certainly one that provided the biggest step probably in my career.
Yeah hmm, that's really interesting. It's funny how some of those seemingly small moments could actually really change the face of a career or where you decide to go. Find that really interesting. Pivoting slightly. I understand that you've had several governance based roles, so one of them PAMU Landcorp. In the past, and I'm really interested in this pathway into governance because obviously people refer back to commercial experience, they look at pros and cons of different people, but also we know that women are still a little bit underrepresented in some of those bigger governance roles, and I'm really interested in your journey in terms of how you got into those positions and just a little bit of the.
Yeah, just a bit of the journey really.
So initially, I first became involved with the catchment groups, the zone committees within Canterbury from a land and water use perspective, and that was as a community representative, which was in an area that I lived in that was of interest and felt that it would give me a different perspective than the purely commercial.
Career i'd had up until that point, and it certainly did.
It opened my eyes to particularly local government, regional government, the various hard working people that are part of those types of organizations that are often if they remunerated at all, that's typically you know, they don't they don't do it necessarily for the accolades and remuneration that comes. So that gave me a bit of a taste for it. But I also then found that from a career development point of view, I was thinking about what would I do next, and that was before I took on the general management role, and that was when I started looking at different boards and where I thought I could add value and certainly the opportunity was PARMU and land Cork came came up, and that that was something that other people and part of my networks had said to me. You know, everyone's got an opinion on PARMO, and that's partly what makes the organization so great, but it's also what makes it very challenging, because it's very easy to have an opinion from the outside looking in. But that was what encouraged me to first to have a look and consider could I add.
Value to that board, and it was. It is a great organization.
I enjoyed it a lot and had the opportunity, but it's not it's not typical because the Crown appointments process and the process of being appointed is very different to an elected position, for example, either publicly listed or through cooperatives, and and very different to the appointed process for independent directors onto boards. So from that point of view, I guess learning the distinction between those and actually the pros and cons of each, but also therefore the requirements to be in a position to be part of those boards are all differences that need to be taken into accounts. So that's probably one of the biggest things I've learned through that experience.
Yeah, I'm also interested in this idea of establishing a value proposition when you're looking at a governance journey and building skills and becoming attractive I suppose to.
Being able to be appointed on a board.
And I'm just wondering if you have any way in which you elevator pats yourself or how do you go you know what, this is my value, this is going to add and you know, get me on here.
Yeah, I wouldn't say I'm very good at that.
I think what happens as you gain experience and particularly in different roles, is I think you develop clarity around it is where you add value, but it's also what what trade off you're willing to make as well. And I think there's also an element of particularly people who've come and I put I'm putting from my own perspective, people who've come through management careers and particularly into executive careers, you do end up becoming somewhat of a generalist in some respects depending on the roles, but particularly in general management, and therefore actually realizing that from a governance perspective, being a generalist may not be that helpful because you want the board to actually provide everyone wants.
Everyone needs to be able to provide a different perspective and an area of speciality or several areas of specialty. So actually not.
Being afraid to hone in and say, well, yes, I'm a specialist in that, but actually I have very limited knowledge of this is actually not a weakness, depending on the skill set that that particular organization might be looking for. And I think it takes a while to sort of get to that point of realizing you don't have to wear all the hats yourself.
Yeah.
True, And that's quite a mindset shift, doesn't it, particularly when you're called upon to do that in your day to day role.
Thinking and switching gears slightly.
One of the things I've most admired about you being one of the leading women that has shaped or how to shape my career is the fact that you have been working in a very male dominated environment and quite often you've been the only female at that top level. And whatever shape or form that might look like, how have you how have you dealt with this in terms of some of the challenging aspects and what advice would you give to someone who is just starting out and might find themselves in that position.
Yeah, you're making me feel old now, Ema, But I don't know when it changed, and it's changed quite significantly. And I think one of the mindsets I adopted early on was actually it helped to stand out because people remembered who I was. Oh yeah, there was a blonde woman there, and it's like, okay, so maybe I can help this to my advantage because at least people remember that I was at some conference or that I was somewhere, but that was after quite a period of actually just blending in because you had to sort of fit in with the men effectively, and there were so few women and that's changed significantly, which is fantastic. So now I look at it and think, well, actually, there are now so many great women in the industry, and that's fantastic to see.
And I then think, well, how would I try and make my presence felt.
Now if I was a young woman coming into agribusiness. And in some respects it's the network's wider, so that's great, But then the ability to stand out is probably more challenging, or to actually find the right connection for whatever it is you know someone is trying to achieve. And from that point of view, I think there is still that ongoing challenge for all of us, doesn't matter whether it's me or woman, is trying to figure out how do you add value and where can you add value and how do you make those connections? And that really comes down to the networks. And therefore I think ensuring that the networks are broad based is still really important because I think there could be a danger of just focusing in one area and you still find you missing out on this whole other piece over here.
That's actually where the action is. So finding a way to blend.
Those networks is really the challenge. I think now if I was, you know, if it was twenty or thirty years ago, and trying to figure out how to do that, achieving the blend would be what I would recommend to people.
Yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense, especially I think as people are moving around a lot more in their career as well, and potentially they might be only in one role for a couple of years and in there looking for the next opportunities. So I think that makes a.
Lot of sense.
I'm interested in how you deal with challenge, so not just in the environment we've been speaking about with being in a mile dominated space, but also in what do you do when stuff goes wrong? What techniques do you have? Your LinkedIn profile, I loved you said I'm known for remaining car under pressure, and I thought, yeah, that's good. I want to hear about what techniques you've got to do that.
I don't know that it's a technique, but it I tend to actually not exactly slow down, but become very deliberate and very focused and I've only known that through being in those situations and then people either reflecting that back to me, and I've been fortunate enough some people have done that very directly to me, so that I know now that it is actually what happens, and so I've become better at recognizing that that's what I do, become very deliberate, very focused on particularly the important things, because it's usually when you're in that crisis situation that you know, you can just end up sort of spinning out at the share volume and breadth of things that are coming flying at you, and being able to shut out the ones that actually aren't going to matter, or that are actually not as important as some other people might think they are. It is actually really critical in those times. So I know that that is a behavior that somehow is how I operate. But I wouldn't say it's a technique. But it be difficult to do that because it's in some cases it's almost a singular focus.
But you can only do that for a limited period of time.
So then recognizing when you actually need to switch from that, you know, come back up for a start looking at the bigger picture again is the other key element of being able to shift that and in some case, particularly through the early onsets of COVID, in some cases that all happened with bast of a couple of hours and then the next thing that needed dealing with. So I think it taught us all how to do that a bit better.
God, that was a hectic time, wasn't it. Now we think about COVID, and certainly.
Your ability to deal with some of those more challenging moments is stuck in my mind, having had the pleasure of working with you as well, and it's given me something to aspire to when you know, everything's happening at once, like today when we're talking and the GDT has dropped quite significantly, and I've just got a message here saying that news how I want to do an interview.
So I'm channeling my inner Haley right now in terms of I guess the way forward for agriculture.
I've always valued and admire your opinions and where you think things are going. And I guess the reflection just a reflection on how agriculture broadly has shifted in the time that you've been working in this space. But where do you think we're going as a broad industry?
I think from a particularly from a New Zealand perspective, the foundations to me actually haven't changed a lot.
What tends to distract.
Us as an industry, particularly in New Zealand are the trends that come and go and trying to figure out which ones are those are lasting, which ones do we actually need to take seriously, and which ones do we just need to manage through. I think that's been particularly challenging because the speed of information is just incredible. The amount of information coming at people just gets more and more and more all the time. So therefore, trying to see through all that to actually make good decisions if anything's become harder, and it shouldn't. It should have become easier because we've got better information and more of it, but it just clouds the judgment and sometimes distilling it down to those. To me, those basic fundamentals that I still think provide us a great foundation for the future is what we need to remember. And the thing that sticks out of my mind recently, because I'm you know, I've been out of that analytical space now for quite a long time, is to see what's happened around you know, alternative proteins for example, and and and the fact that you know, they they were going to be the future, and it was going to be the ruin of farming. It was, you know, they were going to take all this market share, and maybe they still will, and they've certainly taken some market share that actually many of those alternatives are now struggling to find the space as people have reverted back to basics. You know, nutrition and the wholesomeness of naturally produced products is still actually what people want. So it's just one example of you know, things that come and go a little bit. We should still take good notice and think long and hard about the implications for those things, but shouldn't automatically assume that it spells a negative outcome.
That's very interesting. I think there's been a few times in farming's history in this country an.
Artist sunset industry.
Now, and I don't think that that's really the case. Probably is the last question from us, and without being too direct or up front, but I'm just interested in what might be next for you. So where are you strip me as someone who's quite dedicated to learning and growing and taking your opportunity, so I'm kind of interested in what the next step and that space might look like for you.
So am I. I've never had the grand plan so and I still don't so my aunt to their questions, I don't know. And it is interesting because I think, like many people and organizations, the more you learn, the less you know. And all I see is that there's still plenty of opportunity. I'm not worried about not being busy. In fact, I'm more worried about the opposite, and still haven't found.
Enough time to ride my horse. So that's about all I've got for you, I'm afraid.
Yeah, I actually don't know, and I'm assuming that at some point an opportunity will come along that I think, you know, it looks really interesting, and whether that's in conjunction with what I'm already doing or whether it's something different, Yeah, it'll happen.
Yeah. Nice.
It's a nice reminder as well, like not everything has to be really planned out or set. There are different ways to achieving success, whatever that looks like. And for some people, yeah, it can just be going with the flow until the appropriate opportunity presents itself. So yeah, thank you so much for your time, Hailey. I love chatting with you, and as always, you haven't failed to deliver some good gems. So really, thank you for your time and looking forward to whatever that next opportunity might be and where you might go to next, and thank you for being such a trail blazing person within our industry and yeah still being a bit of a mentor for me as well.
My pleasure. You're very generous. Thank you. Well, that was it.
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