Business profile: Stella Muller

New Zealand-based Samoan entrepreneur and marketer Stella Muller has learnt some difficult lessons about when to hold on and when to loosen the reins as she has built her two businesses, Bright Sunday and Hot Samoan Boys. The vision behind Bright Sunday was to create a brand and marketing agency that was Pacific-owned, staffed and driven, Muller says. “What we are saying is that we are a collective of creatives that can offer Maori and Pacific ideas and strategies and ways of thinking for the world to access, because we’re an untapped source of creative potential.

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The Fiji National Provident Fund (FNPF), Fiji’s sole national pension fund may have been churning out multi-million-dollar profits over the years but running its nation-wide operation has also been a costly business.  in what is believed to be its highest bill ever, the fund revealed its total expenses topped over F$50million (US$23million) in 2018 alone, the bulk of which was spent on ‘general administration expenses’.  This was a marked increase from the F$39.47 million it incurred in total expenses in 2017, according to its 2018 annual report.

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Will workers of the future be ready?

Space tourism guide, criminal redirection officer, commercial drone pilot, 3-D printing technician, augmented reality developer and personal privacy advisor; these are just some of the roles of the future says Dr Claire Nelson from The Futures Forum.

A Jamaican futurist, Dr Nelson led a session on ‘Pacific 4.0: Next generation skills for the Blue Pacific’ at the Pacific Skills Summit in Suva recently which aimed  to promote investment in skills development to “realise the Pacific’s sustainable development efforts.” she talked through a list of skills our children and their children will need for job markets of the future, including the ability to collaborate virtually,  filter information by importance, translate vast amounts of data into abstract concepts and understand data-based reasoning; plus digital literacy, a design mindset, social intelligence and adaptive thinking.

But how well equipped are the Pacific’s young people and our education systems to meet those needs?

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The Rotuman expression, “the land has eyes and teeth” is the starting point for a project looking at how communities across the Pacific have established models of economic engagement that challenge negative perceptions around  customary land.

Academics from New Zealand’s Massey University and the University of the South Pacific presented preliminary findings of their research project at the Pacific Update conference in Fiji recently.

Regina Scheyvens, Litea Meo-Sewabu and Suliasi Vunibola have looked at businesses in Samoa and Fiji. What they have found challenge the belief that limits to freehold title and ownership are a barrier to long term planning and  access to finance, and that such limits necessarily  create conflict.

The team found that the businesses, from tourism ventures such as  Taufua Beach Fales and, Faofao Beach Fales in Samoa, to Aviva and Nayarabale Youth Farms in Fiji, share several common characteristics.

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