When many of us think about the work of a commercial litigation lawyer, we conjure up images of courtrooms and people firmly declaring ‘objection’, but as Kirsten O’Rourke explains, there is a lot more to it:
“There’s so much work that goes on behind the scenes of a case, even if you don’t go to trial; but a trial is the culmination of all your hard work, and it gets tested very thoroughly.”
Describing Rachel Carrell as a high achiever is like saying that the All Blacks are a pretty decent rugby team. An Oxford Rhodes scholar, former CEO of the world’s largest online doctor service and now an award-winning and feted entrepreneur making frequent headlines in the UK press thanks to her online nanny sharing service, Rachel’s credentials make for formidable reading.
And that’s before we add in the fact that she was named a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader 2014, no mean achievement in itself.
So how did an ex-Southland Girls High School student from Invercargill achieve such success? It certainly wasn’t an overnight process, but rather a series of well-chosen and strategic choices and more than a pinch of good old-fashioned hard work.
Deborah has a CV many would envy: as a producer with over 20 years’ experience in international films, she has worked with Sir David Attenborough filming in the Galapagos archipelago; co-ordinated Ben Affleck’s visits to Sudan and Darfur for UNHCR and joined director Davis Guggenheim (An Inconvenient Truth) filming Malala Yousafzai.
It was that previous work in documentaries - including long-haul flights, changing time zones and working long days – which gave her a real understanding of the effects of jet lag, stress and burnout. Now she is a qualified nutritionist helping others to discover the foods and lifestyle necessary to build health and resilience for sport, work and travel.
“When research tells us that 26% of children in England do not enjoy reading then we have a problem to address,’ says children’s reading expert Bronnie Mayho. So, this year she and her husband launched Bookwagon, an online children’s bookshop. Alongside selling children’s books that they have read and recommend only, Bookwagon offers a weekly blog of reading news, reading lists and books for schools, arranges author visits and quality book fairs as well as providing a consultancy service for parents to support their children’s specific reading needs.