Women take out top 3 spots

A film-maker, a masseuse/courier and an aspiring retailer - all women - are the three Northland finalists in the 2012 ANZ Flying Start Business Plan Competition.

The placings take Shelly Matiu of Whangarei, Adeline Nash of Kerikeri and Warkworth's Bernadette Maunsell through to the second round of the competition where three regional finalists are invited to submit more detailed business plans by July 31, contesting the regional title and a cash prize of $1000.

The 16 regional winners then go forward to compete for the supreme award; a $56,000 prize package made up of $30,000 cash provided by the ANZ Bank for approved business growth opportunities and a range of marketing, training, legal and small business services.

The competition is organised by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment.

Ms Matiu's business plan was a strategy for her film and television production company, Taitokerau Talent, to move forward with a number of projects including making a pilot for a children's DVD series, a documentary on elite waka ama (outrigger canoeing) international endurance racing and training for actors and technicians. "Anything in front of or behind the cameras," she says.

A sound engineer who formerly worked for an Auckland-based film production company, Ms Matiu came north to take up a job and started her company after noting a big gap in the market here for production services. She has already pitched an idea for the waka ama documentary to television commissioning teams, attracting an expression of interest from Maori Television.

Ms Maunsell, a masseuse who has worked as a courier for the past four years, presented a plan for a business to combine both skills in a mobile workplace - a head and shoulders massage service.

She says the more workplaces she visits the more she observes the signs of "general wear and tear and people sitting all hunched up at their desks".

Ms Nash is repeating last year's success when she was one of the three Northland finalists in the inaugural business plan competition. She grew up in a business-oriented Kaitaia family and has worked in the family business, Knight the Jewellers, for the past 10 years - now she wants to have a go herself. She has used this year's competition to refine and improve her original plan.