Kiwis 'can't cope with successful women'

BY AMANDA MORRALL

Wendy Pye is waiting for the phone to ring. A call from the media is not what she is expecting but as she has all but given up hope of the other, she welcomes it.

It turns out the nature of the call is not that far off the one she has thinly veiled hopes of receiving: a formal invitation to talk about female leadership and success.

As chief executive of Sunshine Books, a start-up publishing company that has made Ms Pye one of the richest (in her own right) women in New Zealand, the effervescent entrepreneur is well placed to give such a talk.

But to her obvious chagrin, no-one is asking. That gap in an otherwise chock-a-block diary, feeds into her theory about why there are not more high-achieving females in business and public life.

Essentially, because "people can't cope" with smart, successful Kiwi women who know how to shake the money tree – and it make it grow. "It is not an encouraging society," Ms Pye says bluntly.

On the National Business Review's 2009 rich list, Ms Pye ranked sixth (among women) with an estimated wealth of $60 million. She was one of fewer than 10 women named on a roll of 155 multi-millionaires with more than $50m to their names. Ms Pye says the list is gratuitous and if she had her way, she would opt out of it.

Of greater significance and personal meaning to Ms Pye is the fact that she is the only living woman inducted into the Business Hall of Fame. She reckons that says far more about her accomplishments than the size of her bank account.

"Money is not a measure of success." That may be true, but in a world where men still dominate in boardrooms, political office and business, those women who find themselves at the head of the table are all the more remarkable for it.

Ms Pye admits it takes a certain kind of personality to reach high altitudes in business, even though she despairs that gender still rates as an issue in the 21st century. "You have to go against the grain, you have to be highly entrepreneurial, you have to be the leader of the pack, you have to say: `What the hell, I'm going to risk that'."

But motivation and daring go only so far. In business, it also takes money, a commodity that can be difficult to come by in New Zealand.

Ms Pye counts it as one of the chief obstacles to entrepreneurs, male or female.

"New Zealand is not business-friendly for the development of money, that is the borrowing of money. It takes an awful lot to take on a lot of risk when you are using your own. There are not many models, apart from me and a few others, who have managed to make it work."

Ms Pye refrains from any talk of discrimination; her achievements work against that argument anyway. Rather, she attributes the scarcity of women in high places to an endemic lack of public support. Not the standard "girls can do everything boys can" platitudes but the type of ingrained societal acceptance that suggests it is OK for women to "go past the traditional roles of being a lawyer, a company director or accountant".

Pye refers to them as "safe roles".

"There isn't any encouragement there," she says. "It is the environment that we work in, the tall poppy syndrome, and our corporate world in New Zealand is not terribly user-friendly towards women either." At least that's been her experience.

"I generally feel that New Zealanders have a problem. They have a problem with me," she says frankly.

"I go to buy a car, and I pay cash because I pay cash for everything and people can't cope with that. People can't cope with the fact that I fly to New York for the weekend or that I've got an apartment near Central Park. They find it really, really difficult to cope with."

Despite her misgivings – or her perceived lack of acceptance – Ms Pye has remained loyal to New Zealand. She says she has no intention of leaving.

"I've been happily married for 42 years [and] I have a wonderful company here. We work in isolation. We don't have any negative thinking. We have a highly creative company, we produce a fabulous product and we are highly respected internationally."

Well established here, Ms Pye has made her peace – and fortune – in New Zealand.

But from a business perspective, she does not think it has much to offer a high-achieving female.

"There are some very successful ones internationally, women from New Zealand who have given it a go here but then left. What advantage would you have here?"

Ms Pye's own experience may have left her bitter but as with all great success stories, adversity has proven her ally.

Here's a brief history: After 22 years as a publisher with New Zealand News, Pye was unexpectedly laid off in 1985.

Where some might have crawled into a black pit of depression, Pye shrugged off any trace of self-pity. Within 24 hours of getting her pink slip, she started Sunshine Books.

Turned down for a business loan by all banks in New Zealand, Ms Pye persevered, until she found Westpac Asia, a merchant bank that dealt exclusively with big companies and large amounts of money.

According to the story – now legendary in business circles – Ms Pye landed the pivotal bank interview that got her a US$100,000 loan, by claiming to know the new retail manager. In fact, she had had the good fortune to sit beside the man while travelling business class on an interstate flight in Australia, her country of origin.

The corporate banker she dealt with was apparently so impressed by Ms Pye's cunning that he gave her the loan, convinced she would be a winner in whatever line of business she took up.

As it turns out, Ms Pye did not need the money in the end as she had clients pay in advance. She banked the money instead and made a profit.

Sunshine, since its humble beginnings in the classrooms of New Zealand, now has eight offices worldwide and sales in 20 countries.

Fresh from four weeks overseas, Ms Pye happily reports that Sunshine secured a contract for her product in 198 schools in New York state.

Ms Pye plans to publish the full story of her and Sunshine's success, "when the time is right". For now, her memoir will take a back seat to business. Her advice to women hoping to follow in her footsteps is "be brave and give it a go" but also to be realistic.

"I'd say reach out to other people who are successful because they've been through it. You also really have to understand that all success carries huge failure as well. There's not one successful person in the world that hasn't failed many times."

In her own way, outside the usual channels, Ms Pye is taking on a mentorship role to encourage and support women who want to make a mark.

She helped to establish an international networking group for business women here, called New Zealand Global Women.

More recently, she was called on by senior diplomats in Australia to explore how to get more women of influence and power involved with high-ranking counterparts in Asia.

Ironically, as Ms Pye extends her reach internationally, domestically she is retreating.

"I don't interface with New Zealand any more because I can't be bothered. When you interface here, there is this real nervousness, everyone crosses their legs and arms at the same time, they think I'm going to eat them alive. It is ridiculous."

Clearly, Ms Pye can afford to be opinionated. Once described in the American media as a woman who "shoots from the lip and hip at the same time", Ms Pye is not shy about tooting her own horn.

You have to wonder if this isn't the quality that self-effacing New Zealand ought to adulate and emulate if it wants to breed more entrepreneurs of her kind, male or female. Ms Pye isn't hopeful.

"It makes me wonder, do they really encourage women to go past the traditional roles – and there is nothing wrong with these roles, mind you – or do they encourage people to take their talents, be it in art or whatever, and give it a go.

"When the day comes that diocesan rings me and says: `We want you to give our final address on how to be a successful woman, a real woman, not a part-man or in a man's world', that would be real interesting. I don't think that day will come. Not in my lifetime anyway."

- © Fairfax NZ News