Women in Business 2026: Connect, Share, & Get Real
On 24 September, nearly 300 people gathered at One New Zealand Stadium for Business Canterbury's Women in Business Forum, an evening of honest, unfiltered conversation with three remarkable leaders:
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Alice Fitzgerald - Chief Executive, The Gut Foundation
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Mary Devine ONZM - Chief Executive, Foodstuffs South Island
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Hon Nicola Grigg - Minister for Women, Minister for the Environment, Minister of State for Trade and Investment, Associate Minister for ACC, and MP for Selwyn
Hosted by Business Canterbury Chief Executive Leeann Watson, the discussion moved well beyond the usual career highlights reel, into the real, messy, and often invisible realities of leading as a woman in business.
The Differing Paths to Leadership
All three panellists described career paths shaped very differently. Alice considered her journey driven less by strategy and more by curiosity and personal circumstance. Mary, in contrast, was intentional and openly competitive, determined to succeed in male-dominated environments, starting in investment banking and carrying that drive through retail and business transformation. Nicola described her path as largely unintentional, moving from journalism into politics via a press secretary role almost by accident, though with a family background in politics, it may have been her calling all along, even before she recognised it herself.
Closing the Confidence Gap
One of the evening's clearest through-lines was the confidence gap. Women consistently hold themselves to a higher standard before putting themselves forward, and this remains largely unchanged. Mary spoke openly about the difference she sees between men and women when recruiting for senior roles, describing a marked gap in confidence between equally capable candidates.
Her advice was direct: back yourself, and have a crack.
All three panellists agreed that self-promotion feels uncomfortable for many women, but pushing into that discomfort is necessary if capability is going to translate into opportunity.
Growth Happens in the Deep End
Alice spoke candidly about being handed responsibility for a co-working location in Melbourne that had been losing money for eight years, with almost no relevant experience, and later, an 80-office site in Singapore losing tens of thousands a month. Both times, she broke down behind the scenes, before eventually turning the business around, reaching $130,000 a month in profit in Singapore within a year.
Her takeaway: putting yourself in hard, overwhelming situations early in your career builds the evidence of your own capability, evidence that travels with you into every future challenge.
The Ongoing Road to Balance
When asked about work-life balance, all three panellists were candid: none of them feel they've yet achieved it. Instead, they spoke about integration, and the reality of navigating demanding careers as single mothers.
Alice described her approach to 'work-life integration' as something that ebbs and flows rather than sits in equilibrium. When she's with her son, she's fully present, no distractions, no half-attention. When he's with his father, she throws herself into work, travel, relationships, or self-care. It's a principle she credits to the book Be Where Your Feet Are, which she recommended to the room as a simple but powerful articulation of presence.
The compromises involved in career progression, all three agreed, are disproportionately personal for women, and largely invisible on paper. Trade-offs around children, relationships, and caring responsibilities shape women's careers as much as, or more than, the jobs listed on a CV, yet receive no formal recognition.
From Doing to Enabling
A recurring leadership milestone across the evening was the shift from solving every problem yourself to building a team that can solve them without you. Mary spoke about ensuring she always had a strong team by her side, freeing her to lead in the areas where she's strongest, rather than trying to be good at everything herself. Alice's mum's advice stuck with her:
"Hire good people, then get out of the way."
Knowing Your Strengths, and Your "Why"
Understanding what motivates you, and what you value, can make a real difference when it comes to making decisions and knowing where you want to go. You don't have to lead, communicate, or show up exactly like someone else, know your strengths, and use them. Knowing your strengths and playing to them was identified as the leadership habit with the greatest long-term impact.
Beyond strengths, all three panellists pointed to something deeper: knowing your "why". This was identified as the most important anchor for sustaining purpose through criticism, self-doubt, and the personal trade-offs that careers, especially for women, inevitably demand.
A Room Full of Support
Building on that idea of purpose, all three panellists agreed that community, and the people you surround yourself with, matters just as much as knowing your own why. Having good people in your corner matters. So does being that person for someone else, supporting, recognising, and encouraging those around you.
Perhaps the most meaningful part of the evening wasn't what was said from the stage, but what it represented: nearly 300 women (and a handful of brave men) coming together to talk honestly about leadership, sacrifice, and resilience. As Nicola put it, finding genuine allies, whoever they are, matters more than where support is expected to come from.
Thank You
A huge thank you to our incredible panellists, Alice Fitzgerald, Mary Devine, and Hon Nicola Grigg, for their honesty and generosity in sharing their stories, and to everyone who joined us for such a memorable evening.
