I want to first acknowledge a higher power in all its wonderful forms. I honour that this Great Spirit is the source of our own spirit. That this scared spirit in us does indeed connect us with all living things and does so most intimately with our ancestors. It is from this higher power that we enter into being and that our spirit forms part of who we are and represents out potential to become anything we can dream of being.

I call for your personal connection to be made clear.

I call for your po...

Since I have been at uni, I have regularly heard, that in the corporate world, people would criticise my culture, my ethnicity, my beliefs. But believe it or not, these were never the things I was scared being criticised of the most.

Since the age of 4, I've had a speech impediment, and since then, everyday has been a test against my mental strength. When TupuToa called me and said I had been accepted into the programme, I was very uncertain. I constantly asked myself, what kind of corporate comp...

Talofa lava. Malo le soifua laulelei.

O au o Letitia Puatausaga Puni. O lou tupuaga e mai i Pu’apu’a i Savaii, ma Matatufu; ma Samatau; ma le Palagi Aotearoa

TupuToa journey

I first received a Tupu Toa internship in 2016. I was 21, studying a double degree in Law and Commerce, a part time employee, and my partner and I had just become guardians of his younger brother.

I was on a mission to fulfil my life purposes of being a contributing citizen of Aotearoa; thanking my parents for their sacrifice an...

Tāne lying flat

Tāne crawling

Tāne with straight back

Tāne with bent back

Tāne the originator of light

Tāne who bested the sky

Who uplifted the heavens

Bringing forth the world of light

Light, light, a world of light

The breath of Life

To those who have passed

Farewell

To those who are here today

Welcome

To Angie Mentis the CEO of BNZ

And to Kate Daly the Chief People Officer

Warm greetings to you both

To the hard workers of TupuToa

Greetings to you

To all the family, the partners, my friends who have gathered her...

Whāia e koe te iti kahurangi; ki te tuohu koe me maunga teitei.

Pursue your treasured aspirations and if you falter, let it be only to insurmountable difficulties.

We select our interns because of their admirable ambition, vast aspirations and appetite for success. We chose our 2019 interns because of their courage to chase after their dreams. So, it was only fitting that the theme for our 2019 TupuToa leadership wānanga was ‘Dare to Dream’.

The day focused on providing our interns with inspiration...