Aoraki student wins regional Leadership award

Aoraki student wins regional Leadership award

Aoraki Polytechnic Diploma in Management student Maria Fitzgerald has been awarded a regional leadership award by an Ashburton accountancy firm renowned for its support of up-and-coming young financial professionals.

The Leadership Award 2009 was presented to Mrs Fitzgerald, who is employed as a finance administrator at the Timaru District Council, at a function to honour recent graduates and comes at a time when the country as a whole is celebrating leadership.

Leadership Week, which is being celebrated throughout New Zealand from June 25 to July 2, highlights the strategic relevance and value that great leadership provides for New Zealand and showcases the work being done to develop our nation’s leadership capability.

The week was inspired by the Sir Peter Blake Trust and celebrations will include national Red Socks Day tomorrow (July 2) which will see thousands of New Zealanders wearing red socks in memory of a great New Zealand leader and his legacy of leadership in action.

Mrs Fitzgerald is completing the New Zealand Institute of Management Diploma in Management at Aoraki Polytechnic while working full-time at the council. She expects to graduate at the end of the year.

She says her award from Croys gave her a cheque for $150 and a certificate.

She said it recognised all her hard work and flowed from a recent placing of first in class in a leadership paper being studied as part of the management course.

“I was so delighted to receive this,” she said. “I have been working very hard.”

Already well entrenched in the workforce having held financial positions at the Queenstown Lakes District Council and in a media role at a local radio station, Mrs Fitzgerald said her business management studies will “hopefully lead to a full Business Diploma in the years ahead”.

She credits Aoraki Polytechnic with helping her reach her full studying potential.

“I considered myself only an average student at [her secondary school in Timaru] Roncalli.

“But the tutors showed me the value of having a goal and focus.

“Their tuition also showed me how to develop a plan,” she said.

“I am a lot more driven now, but I think some of that is the fact that as an adult student I know why I am there, and what I want to achieve. That was lacking a bit in me when I was younger.”

She said the polytechnic environment helped her to focus on what she wanted to achieve.

“The support I am receiving while studying each paper is just fantastic and certainly contributed to my first-in-class result,” Mrs Fitzgerald said.

ENDS