Sustainability and connecting with nature are top priorities for Aotearoa’s young leaders according to Bernice Mene. The former netball star is leading Hyundai NZ’s Pinnacle Programme that helps talented teenagers succeed locally and globally | Content Partnership
It might be tempting to resort to doom and gloom with such serious issues facing the world right now, but a programme focused on empowering youth to become global and community leaders is providing a blueprint for a positive future.
The Hyundai New Zealand Pinnacle Programme takes about 20 young people every year and turns out leaders in diverse areas in everything from the arts and sciences to sports, business, environment and politics.
As a result, says former Silver Fern Bernice Mene, its programme manager since 2014, Aotearoa-New Zealand is in good hands - despite the many challenges facing future generations.
“There’s a lot we’re navigating at the moment and our youth need pathways and support and opportunities to grow and lead the way.
“What’s really inspiring about our students is they have real optimism about the future and what they can achieve out there.”
Hyundai launched the programme in 2004 not only to mentor high performing young sportspeople and transform them into podium winners on the world stage, but to help them become well-rounded athletes for life after sport too. It succeeded many times over, including World Champion rowers Storm Uru and Peter Taylor, Commonwealth Games gold medallist swimmer Moss Burmester, triathlete Debbie Tanner, wakeboarder Andrea Fountain and distance runner Kate McIlroy.
In 2012 Hyundai New Zealand, looking for a more considerable community impact and more accessibility, decided to broaden the scope to include all 15 to 18 years in the country and covering all disciplines and interests.
The programme is entirely funded by Kiwi-owned Hyundai New Zealand, something that always surprises new participants, says Mene.
“The students who have graduated are doing amazing things. They often come from small towns or areas where they haven’t had support or networks of other like-minded people.”
“The new stage ones that have just come in, they were amazed that the aim for us is we want to diminish the barriers for them participating. It’s all funded, which is massive for the participants.”
The programme is split across three stages, which includes 10 days spent on board the Spirit of New Zealand ship, 21 days doing Outward Bound and five days off grid at Kai Waho in the Central North Island. Students also get access to one-on-one mentoring.
Mene says the focus on connecting with nature reflects a change she has observed in more recent years in the priorities of the teenagers who come through the programme.
“Pretty much all of them have very much an environmental foundation of their values and how they would like to make a difference or have a social impact on our communities and on New Zealand itself.”
In fact, connecting with nature is one of the fundamental elements of the course and something Mene says alumni return to again and again as a source of grounding.
“Doing the experiential learning, the Outward Bound and Spirit of Adventure and Kai Waho, they’ve ended up really loving nature. They work hard and then, with this newfound love of the environment and hiking, that’s what they do to balance up, which is really important. If you are going to be achieving at any level you have to have a real good gauge on your own wellbeing.”
One recent graduate, Isla Day, credits the Pinnacle Programme as the catalyst to engage her diverse interests and successes. Among other things, Day is a climate justice advocate, a downhill mountain biker who teaches other women and girls the same skill, and she is completing her honours degree with a research project that combines pharmacology with immunology.
Mene says graduates like Day personify the purpose of the course and its potential.
“When you look at the whole being of these Pinnacle graduates - what they have accomplished, what they’re seeking to achieve - but also their values, they’ve figured out who they are and where they come from. And that’s really important to making not just leaders but really positive functioning members of our communities and societies.”
Another graduate James Reilly, who went through all three stages of the Pinnacle Programme, now has an engineering degree and a strong interest in sustainable engineering and carbon reduction.
“I wasn’t special when I applied for the Pinnacle Programme, nor was I a born leader. The Pinnacle Programme taught me focus and made me a leader. They aligned my values in a way that made my future clear in front of my eyes. Spirit of Adventure, Outward Bound, and Kai Waho all played unique parts in my development, and I am extremely fortunate to have had this amazing opportunity,” says Reilly.
Others have travelled abroad to follow their dreams, like Georgia Brooks, who graduated from the programme in 2020 and is now studying towards a double degree in mechanical engineering and biomedical science at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia.
Brooks has a particular interest in bionics and prosthetics, and is already the team lead of Hearthack, the world’s first Total Artificial Heart competition, which endeavours to create solutions to ease the burden of heart failure.
Mene says perhaps more than anything else, the programme shows just how much there is to learn from today’s youth.
“It’s enabled us to recognise that not all knowledge just comes from grey hairs, and what having a youth perspective brings. We’re giving them the support and growing these good leaders to go forward and take our country through into that next era.”
Andy Sinclair, CEO of Hyundai New Zealand, says the locally owned company is focused on leadership in the same way it wants to lead the automotive industry in the transition to low emission vehicles.
“We are leading the way with NZ’s largest range of low-emission vehicles including Electric Vehicles, Plug-in Hybrids, Hybrids and Hydrogen Fuel Cell Electric Vehicles, including the first hydrogen fuel cell truck in New Zealand, but know it is just as important to help in the development of New Zealand’s future leaders and change makers.
“We are proud of what the Hyundai Pinnacle Programme has achieved and just looking at our list of alumni and meeting our most recent students, we get so excited about what the future holds, especially as the world goes through some significant transformations and pressures that have impacted us all.
“New Zealand has always been considered a leader nation, and we want to continue this long-held tradition of packing a big punch for a small country by ensuring those motivated to succeed get every opportunity to do so.”
Hyundai is a partner of Newsroom
Hyundai New Zealand’s vision for an optimistic future is artfully captured in a new brand campaign showcasing past and present Pinnacle Programme students. The campaign, titled Future Positive, expresses Hyundai NZ’s commitment to developing future leaders while also playing a pivotal role in helping to de-carbonise New Zealand. The new videos can be viewed at www.hyundai.co.nz/future-positive
