As a kaiāwhina (leader) at the Ngāti Rānana Māori club in London, Claire has honed her leadership skills at events on the world stage, performing here in the UK and most recently at Expo 2020 in Dubai. Combined with a career as a programme consultant, it's all part of how she lives her life: “Put in the effort, make friends and do things you enjoy,” she says.

Claire is Ngāti Porou and grew up in Lower Hutt with her parents and three sisters. After finishing school, she moved to Perth in Australia, along with her family, where she studied biological science at Murdoch University.

After going on to do a post-graduate diploma and a masters degree in Marine Science at Otago University, Claire started her career in Wellington. Her first job was at Te Puni Kōkiri, the Ministry of Māori Development, as a policy analyst, focusing on marine resources and aquaculture reforms and was involved in the historic foreshore and seabed consultations. She also worked on international indigenous issues and participated in the development of the Government’s policy in relation to the Convention of Biological Diversity and the draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People.

Steph Lee was sitting in the 02 preparing to get on stage to dance in Ed Sheeran’s opening performance at the Brit awards, when she had a moment.

“I had Adele literally two metres to my left and Olivia Rodrigo two metres to my right, knowing I was about to go on stage for Ed Sheeran, and I thought to myself, ‘wow, I’ve made it’,” she says.

Steph describes the three days of rehearsing earlier this year, leading up to the event itself; a spectacle involving pyrotechnics, flying dancers and a surprise appearance from British rock group Bring Me the Horizon, as “epic”.

“That was the first time that I actually felt like I had made it in the industry,” she says. “I was just trying to soak it all in.”

Having moved to London in June of 2019, Alice had six months on the ground before the pandemic hit. It was what could be described as either the best or worst timing, but regardless, she’s not looked back.

With a passion for journalism from a young age, Alice studied Media and English Literature at Victoria University in Wellington and then Journalism at Canterbury University. It was while she was studying at Victoria and writing for the Salient – the university's student magazine – that she made her writing debut. This was an opinion piece on how we are spending too much time on our phones – she now jokes that her screen time has definitely doubled since those days! It was off the back of this feature that she was offered a position in their news team. As she became what she describes as ‘somewhat obsessed’, her path forward suddenly became obvious.