“I never thought about anything like that before.”
Going back “quite a few years”, Werohia-Lloyd said she helped Māori women with their education by doing homework programmes and kapa haka. She had also been a member of a Māori authority for about 25 years, where she says she learned “lots and lots”.
“They are a group of Māori business people from around New Zealand. They have annual general meetings and things like that but they also give us updates on anything political that might come up that affects us as Māori.”
Originally from Mount Maunganui, Werohia-Lloyd said she spent five or six years in Australia where her husband was working as a chef. The pair moved to Australia with their first child and had their second child while living there.
“I didn’t really get into business until I came back from Australia ... and went to a Māori land meeting.”
She became the first woman to be on the board of the Mangatawa Papamoa Blocks, becoming a member of the committee management.
“I definitely believe in succession ... we’ve built Mangatawa from when I first started [from] a $12 million business, which is mostly the value of the land, and now I think we’re sitting up about $270 million.”
She said it had two retirement villages, which she was “instrumental” in developing.
“We still have our kiwifruit and we have beef on a farm - we grow calves and sell them on.”
It had also developed its industrial lands which Mainfreight sits on.
“We don’t sell the land, which I think is a good thing. We still own all the land even though we’ve gone into different businesses.”
Asked what her biggest achievement was, Werohia-Lloyd said one of them was developing an award-winning administration office when she was a project manager.
Before her time, employees were working out of a “hay barn,” she said.
When she started, they were working out of a “one-bedroom kitchen and shed”.
“Then we moved to the marae and then we bought this old second-hand building that was an old shearer’s cottage and renovated it into two offices.
“Our next office was a three-room shed and we used to work out of that for at least 12 to 18 months while the new office was being built.
“So having a new office and as beautiful as it is ... that was a good achievement for us.”
Werohia-Lloyd said she had met some “wonderful people” during her career.
“[I] have built a lot of respect for my elders and learned a lot from them too, which is great ... and working with the young ones too. I enjoy that just as much.”
After retiring last year from her position as chief executive, Werohia-Lloyd said she still worked part-time, working for a trust, managing a B and B holiday home on Matakana Island and a papakāinga [a housing development for Māori people on their ancestral land] on Ranginui Rd in Welcome Bay.
