Next year, Ms Findlater, who is dealer principal at Southern Automobiles in Invercargill, will travel to Boston to study at Harvard, one of the most prestigious universities in the world.
She is this year’s recipient of the Janet Lane MNZM Scholarship, awarded by the Motor Industry Training Organisation (MITO) and the Inspiring Futures Foundation in their annual scholarship awards.
She will complete the Harvard Division of Continuing Education’s certificate of leadership excellence in strategy and innovation, doing three of the required courses online and then heading to Harvard to complete one course on-campus.
Southland born and raised, Ms Findlater grew up in Edendale and attended Menzies College. She described herself as not the smartest at school, but worked hard, she said.
Her mother said she must do some form of tertiary education so, being a keen sportswoman, she did a diploma in sport and recreation before heading to Melbourne, where she worked as a legal receptionist.
She was about 23 when she could not get a job and realised she did not have a career, so she decided to train as an auto electrician, signing up for a pre-trade course at the Southern Institute of Technology.
She was one of only two women on the course; the rest were mostly 17-year-old lads straight out of school. Ms Findlater went on to be named top student across the automotive school.
From there, she did her apprenticeship with AJ Auto Electrical in Invercargill — an "absolutely fantastic" place to work, she said.
After nearly five years, a job arose at MITO as an industry training adviser, looking after automotive apprentices in the region. At that stage, she was the only female training adviser among the 28 throughout the country, although there had been one a few years earlier.
She was then shoulder-tapped by the Motor Trade Association to be a business manager. She later joined GWD Motor Group as an aftersales development manager and was promoted through that business.
Wanting to do some business study, she enrolled in a diploma of business, then completed a bachelor in applied management, majoring in HR management, and recently finished her masters in applied management.
From GWD, she joined Scania New Zealand as branch manager before the position arose at Southern Automobiles last year.
With few opportunities for such a role in Southland, she was just hoping to get an interview, and was grateful to Ken Cummings — the owner and board chairman of Southern Automobiles — and the rest of the board for the opportunity.
She saw the Harvard opportunity as the next step in her leadership journey. The business world was constantly evolving and it was important to be at the forefront of it, she said.
She had always been one to embrace change — "if you can see the benefit, see the ‘why’ behind it," she said.
The Janet Lane MNZM Scholarship was awarded to a single individual each year to support an intensive and comprehensive course of management and leadership study.
Named to honour MITO’s former long-standing chief executive, it was designed to enhance and accelerate opportunities for people whose development of leadership capabilities would have a major impact on the performance of their sector.
Ms Findlater — who won the Motor Trade Association’s Female Achievement in the Motor Industry Award in 2016 — said the opportunity represented a critical step in her academic and professional journey.
The certificate programme would take a year to 18 months to complete and she would begin her studies immediately. The course ranged from advanced business strategy and strategic sales management to leading successful change and leveraging artificial intelligence to boost business efficiency and growth.
Ms Findlater had previously been offered opportunities in larger centres, but she was born and bred in the South. It was where her family and her husband’s family lived, and family was very important to her. It also took just five minutes to drive to work, Invercargill boasted some great facilities and she enjoyed her career and the team.
She paid special tribute to her accountant husband, who had been her "absolute rock" throughout her career.
It made the scholarship even more special to have such an opportunity from her hometown. When she first started studying for a diploma, she never thought she would end up with a masters degree. "It’s not limiting yourself, be broad-minded and if you want to dream big, why not?" she said.
She had aspirations of getting into more governance roles and she believed it was important, particularly in a smaller community, to "be present, to be out there and involved".
Ms Findlater was delighted to see more young women getting into the trades and said there were some good initiatives in the South to encourage that.
She encouraged anyone interested in a career to "give it a go" and hoped that she might inspire others, particularly women, to look at the trades as a career.
