New Zealand

Episode 10 #PassTheMic: Career Coaching, empowering women, working with DEI

Episode 10 #PassTheMic: Career Coaching, empowering women, working with DEI

Suki Xiao is a Chinese-New Zealander, Career Coach and Founder of "As You" with a mission to empower women of colour to have confidence and clarity in their career and leadership. A former Agile Coach at Xero and other tech companies, she is now mentoring people around finding their purpose and redefining their grind. In this episode, we talk about impostor syndrome in the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion space, what it’s like to define yourself as an Asian woman coach and bringing your whole self to work. We also touch on what femininity means to us.

Episode 11 #PassTheMic: Connection to Samoan and Chinese roots, community and leadership

Episode 11 #PassTheMic: Connection to Samoan and Chinese roots, community and leadership

This episode, I chat to Ashley Petau-Ah Poe. Ashley is Samoan-Chinese, she grew up in Hong Kong and moved later to New Zealand. She's currently graduating with her law degree. And in this episode, we talk about the feeling of being displaced or not being connected to your Pacific roots, the whole idea of being a plastic Samoan and what it actually means, and then also finding a community of people who feel the same. We touch on good and bad leadership, and Ashley shares some examples of organisations that she loves. Lastly, we talk about that feeling of not doing enough or not knowing if your story is important enough to share. Welcome, Ashley.

Episode 13 #PassTheMic: Culture, faith, food and belonging in the world of sports

Episode 13 #PassTheMic: Culture, faith, food and belonging in the world of sports

Ajaz is a New Zealand cricketer, who plays for none other than Black Caps, representing New Zealand international, for all your cricket fans out there. We will be discussing questions of culture, faith, belonging, and interestingly food and how all of it plays into the field of sports.

Episode 15 #PassTheMic: Tales of being a child refugee, human rights advocacy and Love Is Blind

Episode 15 #PassTheMic: Tales of being a child refugee, human rights advocacy and Love Is Blind

This interview is with a wonderful, wonderful woman in a dear friend, Kat Eghdamian. She is an Iranian-Kurdish New Zealander and former child refugee. Kat has 6 degrees (which she is a bit embarrassed about) and works as Lead Advisor for Equal Employment Opportunities Commissioner. Kat tells many stories about her country of birth, journey to Aotearoa, her parents and her work with migrant exploitation and modern slavery. We end on chatting about Love is Blind and delicious Persian food. Enjoy.

Episode 7 #PassTheMic: Bringing your cultural identity into career coaching

Episode 7 #PassTheMic: Bringing your cultural identity into career coaching

This conversation is with Andrew Tui. He is a podcaster and a career practitioner who loves coffee and a ukulele jam. In this podcast, we dive deeper into Andrew’s Samoan-Chinese heritage and his connections to faith and the rainbow community. Andrew shares some practical insights and advice that organisations can and should take when it comes to equity, diversity and inclusion, especially around Pacific youth.

Episode 8 #PassTheMic: Queer culture, ethnicity & living your truth

Episode 8 #PassTheMic: Queer culture, ethnicity & living your truth

This conversation is with Medulla Oblongata. She is a drag Queen performer, who competed in the first season of House of Drag. Medulla is a non-binary former refugee from the Maldives who lived in Malaysia, before finding their home in Aotearoa New Zealand. We talk about queer culture, living your truth, behind the scenes of NZ drag, and discrimination. Fasten your seat belts, get your cuppa and read on (or listed in).

Episode 1 #PassTheMic: Climate Justice & finding yourself as a migrant

Episode 1 #PassTheMic: Climate Justice & finding yourself as a migrant

Pok Wei Heng is a climate change consultant by day, working on regenerative cities centred on learning from indigenous wisdom, and a climate justice advocate by night. Pok recently moved to New Zealand from Singapore and is passionate about decolonisation, exploring Asian identity, connecting climate justice with diversity, equity and inclusion work. In this episode we discuss the pros and cons of collectivism, migrant relationships with Te Tiriti and Māori, allyship, finding your place as a recent migrant and climate change.

Episode 3 #PassTheMic: African representation, poetry and hot takes

Episode 3 #PassTheMic: African representation, poetry and hot takes

Vira Paky is a young Congolese-Kiwi-South African woman. She is a Chairperson of the New Zealand National Refugee Youth Council, which advocates for, engages & supports refugee background youth around Aotearoa New Zealand. Vira is an outstanding poet who writes about intersections of feminism, race, African identity and many other poignant topics. In this episode we talk about Vira’s poetry, being true to her voice, black-kiwi representation in New Zealand, what it means to be an advocate in this day and age plus Vira's “hot take” about young people and the future.