Lizzie Scott, born in Oamaru in 1963, educated at Waitaki Girls’ High School and Otago University, where I got BA and BCom degrees.

I began my career at IBM in New Zealand and then in the UK, before moving to Japan, in 1994, where I transitioned into a headhunting role. Returning to the UK in 2000 after 3 years in France, I started my own recruitment company, which I successfully ran for 20 years.

In 2020, I decided to return to New Zealand because Dad was very ill.

I think it would be true to say that I've always had a, um; a questioning attitude. (Why? Why not? But how about we think about it differently?)

Fortunately, during my 24-month contract at MSD from 2021, my managers were open to this approach, and helped me. I had the genuine pleasure of assisting 48 unemployed, depressed people into employment. These were mostly mid-career professionals over 40, whose jobs had been affected by Covid or absorbed by the digital age.  So they were offered new, high-tech IT training.

I was diagnosed with MS in 1993, and though my walking is pretty bad, it hasn’t stopped me yet.