Allana Coulon - Managing Partner, MartinJenkins

My first regular part-time job was at Georgie Pie, having started summer work as a camp counsellor at the lesser-known Camp David (in Hawkes Bay).

It’s a big deal when you finish uni and start applying for jobs, with very little experience to show on your CV. Getting a foot in the door is huge.

My first job out of university was at Toyota New Zealand, in what was effectively their graduate programme. It was the best induction to the working world ever, including getting to drive new cars around the Manwatu!

It was fascinating seeing things I’d studied being applied in the real world. Being a Japanese company, they followed many practices related to lean management like kaizen (continuous improvement) and just in time practices in the parts warehouse.

As a business graduate with a major in a Resources Management, it was also interesting to work for a large company with no human resource management department - it was the responsibility of all managers!

I also learnt that customer satisfaction and retaining customers over time is the life blood of a successful company. Everything revolved around this at Toyota New Zealand. They were incredibly focused on looking after their customers and proud to be the leading seller of new vehicles in the New Zealand market.

I had to deal with people with across the business to respond to customer queries so I learnt a lot about all the different divisions - marketing, IT, the dealer network, the service centre, parts warehouse. It helped me learn how multi-faceted running a company is!

Having a sense that what you do matters, and why, is super important for any employee, regardless of the organisation. At Toyota New Zealand, they were great at immediately encouraging all employees to get involved in making the company better and feeling implicated in the success of the organisation.

I’ve worked across about 8 companies and 10 different roles including Hospitality, Horticulture, Corporate, Employment Advocacy, Tertiary Education (Massey University) and Public Policy (Department of Labour). Then I joined MartinJenkins as a consultant.

I was in my mid-30s when the idea of being an owner of MartinJenkins was first suggested to me. Doug Martin, one of our Founders and a man of few words, told me the Partners saw me as a future owner. I was blown away at the time. That caused a big shift in my outlook and the way I approached my job subsequently because I realised I did want to achieve that goal.

You can never know what it means to own a business until you own a business but I started to regularly ask the question ‘what would I do if I was an owner and leader of MartinJenkins?’.

I came up through MartinJenkins before I took on the role of Managing Partner. Professional services are a bit different from other organisations in that way. Senior leaders are generally grown in the business and recruited from within.

The cognitive load associated with taking on the role of leading the company was huge. I had a lot to learn. More than anything, I had to learn patience.

You’ve got time. People can only absorb so much change. Finding the right balance between pushing the organisation forward and letting people adapt and catch up is important and needs regular recalibrating.

In everything you do, people see the role. Whether you like it or not, you carry the mantle of the role and that carries meaning for everyone around you. What you say matters, even when you’re not conscious of it, people are watching and listening and making meaning.

I’ve been surprised by the weight my words and actions carried - at all times. Over time, I have learned to be clear when I am making a decision, and when I am just thinking out loud and exploring options.

Start honing your communication skills. It’s hard to over communicate and easy to not communicate enough. That will stand you in good stead in any role!

Stay humble. You are there to enable others and help the organisation play and win as a team. Being a leader is not about being an expert - it’s about harnessing and the developing the expertise of those around you.

Never stop learning. We are never done. There is always more we can learn and be. I guess the kaizen principles from Toyota New Zealand rubbed off on me!  

If anyone is thinking about wanting to become a CEO, reach out. I’d love to talk through with you what a pathway towards your goal might look like.

I’m driven to help the people around me, and the organisation I lead, continue to grow and evolve. I love my job because of the incredible team of people, the constant challenge and need for growth and reinvention. It’s a privilege to lead a company - in good times and in bad.