Six months after launching a co-working space in Hamilton, Impact Hub Waikato has boosted its membership to 80, and has tenants for both its private office spaces.
In March the organisation kicked off its third entrepreneurship programme and it has also opened a podcast studio at its central city premises.
At a social event in April, impact support and innovation lead Paul Kerssens outlined upcoming activities including a vision impact recovery event in June and a series of innovation lunches online.
Impact Hub Waikato is also working with one of its tenants, Partner4Growth, to co-create a series of events. Partner4Growth founder Eugene Moreau said the focus would be on leadership, teamwork, trust and communication.
“We’ve been in this game a long time and we recognise a lot of organisations, a lot of individuals, have a really, really good idea – they have a vision but without strategy and execution it’s just a fantasy,” he said.
Impact Hub programme manager and community coach Ella Stuart said it was exciting to be co-creating. “Because at Impact Hub, we love collaboration. And we want to partner with people to make a wider impact.”
Ella Stuart
Impact Hub Waikato is a part of a worldwide network focused on building entrepreneurial communities for impact, and is the first in New Zealand.
Moreau says Partner4Growth is a mastermind coaching company. “We specialise in self-employed and small business owners in helping them to go into business, not just have a job.
“We help them with their strategy, their presentation, their pitch, the whole nine yards.”
Partner4Growth set up in the Impact Hub space on the corner of Collingwood and Anglesea Streets earlier this year after Moreau saw the sign when passing one day.
“We really focus on four critical words, unlock, inspire, motivate, and equip. That’s why we work so well with Impact Hub, because they have a certain group that need a certain inspiration, unlocking, motivating or equipping.”
Maryse Dinan, Steve Tritt and Vanessa Williams
Partner4Growth business partner Jenne Von Pein, who has worked virtually with companies around the world on execution strategy, had worked with Moreau in the past.
She says they recognised during lockdown how businesses could become “very alone”. When Moreau came up with the Partner4Growth concept, she says it was a no-brainer for them to join and she merged her Jungle Strategy firm with the new company.
Von Pein, an Aucklander, says she believes Hamilton has huge opportunity.
“There is much greater opportunity in Hamilton and Tauranga at the moment with the way people are thinking with their really professional response to Covid,” she says. “I believe many Auckland businesses are sitting there waiting for it to go back to the way it was. Hamilton and Tauranga have met it face on, they know they need to change and they’re looking for ways to do that. So it’s a completely different mindset.”
Jenne von Pein and Eugene Moreau
Another at the event, Michelle Howie of Howie Consulting, has been a member of the Hub for a year, largely thanks to the Covid lockdown.
“I do facilitation work, and my name came up and was recommended to a local social enterprise. They needed somebody who was experienced in online facilitation, because we all went home and lived on Zoom, remember?
“This new social enterprise that contacted me said: ‘We’ve already got something in the diary, and it’s to deliver a workshop on wellbeing for members of Impact Hub, could you do that?’”
That became her introduction to the Hub, running a Zoom workshop for some of their members. Howie, a coach and facilitator, uses the Impact Hub space to work away from home occasionally, while 10-15 people use the space weekly, with capacity for more.
Paul Kerssens, Samantha Hall and Michelle Howie
Also among the roomful of entrepreneurs, Ngāruawāhia-based Sarah White is attending the Impact Hub’s Back to Purpose course, aimed at creating impact-led businesses. She is setting her sights high.
“I am building up a coaching business. I’m quite spiritual in hosting women’s circles, oracle card readings. And a lot of the drive behind that is wanting to create community and support people, in knowing themselves better and going inwards.”
She wants to create a wellness centre and community hub with a connection to nature, potentially including a cafe, shop, co-working space, and healing rooms. She also sees an opportunity to include co-housing with communal spaces. On the course with her is Anna Petchell, who runs APetchell Coaching.
“I help people who are feeling lost, confused and stuck in their careers, I help them figure out an exit strategy and live a more fulfilling life.”
While she has local clients, she works online internationally and her somewhat novel specialty is working with super yacht crew, because having worked in that industry she knows what they face.
“When I went through that transition, it was very real. From working at sea for eight years, coming from that back to doing something else, I was a little bit lost.”
She also works with a firefighter, with shift workers, with people who have specific skills that are hard to cross relate to another industry.
“What I help them do is figure out who they are and figure out what they actually want.”
