A Christchurch business and community leader saw a gap in Pacific business development and networking and decided he had to do something.
In 2019, Danté Fyfe realised there was a gap in opportunities for Pacific people working in business.
As the co-founder of the Pacific Business Collective and Moana Community Trust, he noticed that many Pacific peoples didn't feel confident in starting a business and were unsure how to grow their network to pathway into business.
"We recognised some of our people wanted pathways into careers but didn't know where to start. There was no one doing any Pacific business networking or any Pacific business development here in Ōtautahi," Says Danté.
"So, we thought, how can we help in that space?"
At the time, the Pacific Business Trust didn't offer workshops like this in Christchurch so I started a side hustle.”
Danté and his co-founder Sefa Faletanoai launched the Pacific Business Collective in 2019, creating space for Pacific peoples wanting to branch into business and giving them the space to network with each other. From there, they branched out into hosting business development workshops, calling in different specialists to help members develop their skills.
“In early 2021, we started what was then called the Pacific Peoples Trust and is now called Moana Community Trust, based off two flagship programmes. One was financial capability and the other was youth employability.
“It was about leveraging off our informal and formal relationships between the Pacific Business Collective and Moana Community Trust. We would find mentors and financial advisers to help people who were either struggling with understanding money, or finding somebody in a particular industry they wanted a pathway into.
“From here sprouted our flagship Pineapple Pie & Network! Series”, says Danté.
Each month, Danté and his team bring in a guest speaker to present and network over pineapple pie and other traditional Pacific treats.
“We noticed that people would come to one meeting, and it would plant the seed of an idea for a business with them.
“Maybe six months later they'd come to another meeting and they'd say to us, “I've started”.
“It would just be amazing. It showed us that when we were consistent, meaningful and purposeful with our engagement, it helped bring out that entrepreneurial spirit from different people within our community," he says.
When the Ministry for Pacific Peoples launched the Pacific Business Village initiative in 2022 to support the growth and development of Pacific-owned businesses in New Zealand. They received funding for two years through the Ministry’s initiative, which was extended by a further year.
Danté and Sefa had already been up and running for two years when they received the funding.
“The Pacific Business Village programme gave us a good foundation. The marketing we were able to do with the funding gave us such a massive spread and a massive reach.
“People know about Pineapple Pie in Ōtautahi. You talk about Pacific business and we say we run the Pineapple Pies and they'll say, “yeah, I know that one.” So I think the initiative helped solidify some of our branding, some of our programming, and gave us a really good base.
“We'll always be grateful for that. Even though the initiative came to an end, we still continue, and the Pacific Business Collective is still here. Our monthly meetings, and our Pineapple Pies will continue.”
Looking forward, Danté wants to help change the statistics on Pacific business ownership.
“In the Ministry’s Lalanga Fou report I read 10 years ago, it found that just 31 percent of Pacific people have income from other sources, such as business ownership and investments, compared with 66 per cent nationally,” he says.
“When you ask me what a prosperous Pacific business community in Canterbury looks like in ten years' time, all I hope to achieve, for our Collective, our Trust, is changing those statistics.”