Dress ups and dreams
When I was a little girl, I’d always look at my mum and think she was the most amazing woman. She dressed in nice high heels and a corporate suit, with impeccable hair and makeup – she lit up every room each time she would walk in. She was strong, confident, smart, funny, ran her own business and everyone got along with her.
In my primary school years, my girlfriends and I would have fun pulling apart her wardrobe and playing ‘dress ups’ with shoes ten sizes too big, skirts falling around our ankles, long beads around our necks and bright red lipstick on our faces. We were dreaming, with the room filled with perfume. I remember saying to my friend, “I want to be like my mum when I grow up, a real business woman.” I had no idea what that actually entailed, although she was my inspiration.
University
It wasn’t long before I completed high school and it was no surprise I journeyed on to graduating university with a Bachelor of Business Management, majoring in Management, Marketing, and Communications. I will never forget the first semester of university when my mum looked me in the eye, and told me how proud she was. It was this very same semester when she was taken too suddenly from us – right before my 18th birthday celebrations.
My dreams kept me going and I stuck my head into books, which was a good distraction. I was employed full-time in my last year of university, gaining valuable work experience and skills for my future. To quote Einstein, “In the middle of difficulty, remains opportunity.” My whole life I have been setting myself goals for my continued growth and development.
HTG
When I first joined HTG, this behaviour didn’t stop; it accelerated to no-end. I have a very vivid memory of one of the first development courses I attended with David Llewellyn from Lead CI. He encouraged us to write a vision, and at this stage, I had only one staff member who helped me with graphic design, and we worked with a marketing agency across six business units. My vision was to have a team of people who I could lead and collaborate with on multiple brands, campaigns, and projects.
Within a short time-frame, the marketing team grew from two to ten talented people who all have diverse skills and beautiful personalities. The team markets reputable brands including Telstra Business and Telstra Retail, Vast Furniture & Homewares and we are brand building other businesses including Techwell, Formaliti, and Loanezi, to name a few. My leadership skills have been complemented with ongoing Aspire Courses and Human Resource refreshers all conducted within HTG.
The best thing about this place is the people; you are encouraged to develop and learn more and more all the time. Our values actually include ‘friendship’ and my awesome team live and breath this value every day. We are friends in and out of work, we all enjoy a nice glass of wine, a beer or two, and having a good time together. We work hard and play hard; it’s a bit of a motto around the grounds at HTG. It is definitely the people you work with that create a great workplace.
To see what opportunities are available for you, check out our career opportunities or get in touch today.
Zoe Shearer
Group Marketing Manager