A Message From The Rector

By Richard Hall | Posted: Friday June 29, 2018

This week in assembly, old boy Steve Anderson (1974-78) spoke to the boys about the concept of their personal brand.

Steve is currently the CEO of Foodstuffs South Island and GM of Foodstuffs NZ, a business which turned over $3 billion dollars in 2017. His company employs over 30,000 people, so when he speaks to our boys they need to listen as he will end up employing many of them - I worked for Foodstuffs.

What he means by a personal brand is that any young person needs to be mindful of what they stand for, how they conduct themselves, including how they respond to a crisis and obviously their social media profile.

He spoke about being kind to all, and how that actually helped him get a very important job. He also reminded boys that any employer in this age will first look at their online profile before choosing to hire them.

Most powerfully to me, he spoke about his most hated four letter word - 'just'. He spoke clearly that if our boys are 'just' in the 2nd XI, or 'just' a merit student, then that is what people will hear. But they are not 'just' in the 2nd XI, they are a part of the 2nd XI and should be working hard to play well for the 2nd XI. That is a positive.

Too often our boys will talk any achievement down, and while as a country we hate those who skite, we also need to get young people to boost themselves by acknowledging what they are good at.