Michelle MacLean

Career Development Manager

Michelle loved school but had no idea what she wanted to do when she left. She considers herself lucky to have found her passion for helping people find direction early on in her career. Over the years Michelle has developed her expertise and skills around working with people of all ages and making a positive difference within their personal and professional lives.

Michelle’s background and experience includes recruitment, customer relationship management, marketing, business development, sales/account management and event management roles within the IT, Hospitality, Tourism and Retail industries throughout New Zealand and Asia Pacific. She has also established a successful business through one-on-one coaching and facilitation of personal and professional development workshops.

Michelle strongly believes it is about the student making an informed choice and having the best possible support in taking that first important step in their career. Her approach includes consistent and open communication with a student’s parents and school guidance counsellors to ensure they are engaged in every stage of the programme - with the student’s approval.

Michelle is passionate about the Whr24U programme especially seeing that moment when a student gets a clear picture about where they want to go and they can see it is actually possible for them to achieve what they want.

Thane Haarhoff

Contract Consultant

Thane brings over 25 years experience from a number of progressive organisations developing health insurance products and services. He has also consulted to an organisation taking books to children in schools and another working with communities affected by crime and violence. "I became increasingly aware that my 'hot-button' is making a difference in the community where I live and work" he says "If only I'd known that sooner". Working in career guidance has special meaning for Thane because he was always told "Oh, you can do whatever you want" - typical of the not very helpful advice so many people get when they are moving out into the workforce.

Talking with Thane about taking Whr24U to those who need it reveals his commitment to the programme as it is clearly much more than just a job for him. He often says things like "Never mind the generation gap, what about the gap between high-school and the next step!". He says that New Zealand schools are generally very good at assisting students with subject choices and providing information on career options, but it is critically important that every individual also finds out where their strengths lie, what their values are, what gets them excited and perhaps most importantly, has a structured plan of how to get where they want to go! He says we sometimes forget that the super-confident, tech-savvy, Gen-Y, social networkers out there are also just people about to step out into a world that becomes more bewildering with so many more choices every day - and they need help with that. "It's all about partnerships" he says and adds "the student, their school guidance counsellor, their parents, and Whr24U are proving to be THE winning partnership".

Jacinda Austin

Programme Manager

Jacinda always had an interest in the sciences at school and was really interested in finding out how people work and why they are the way they are.  Once school finished, she knew she wanted to study Psychology but there were so many options to the point of being overwhelmed!  Finally in 2005, after a lot of chopping and changing, she found a degree with the structure and content that suited her interests and graduated in 2008 with a Bachelor of Health Science in Psychology.  Alongside Michelle and Elizabeth, Jacinda assists with the overall programme and more specifically – the feedback students will receive on their psychometric testing.  She is fully qualified to interpret the assessments into language that both students and parents can understand.  Jacinda is available to answer any questions you may have about the Whr24U programme and the testing that’s involved.

Elizabeth Howells

Industrial/Organisational Psychologist

A consultant industrial/organisational psychologist working with Whr24U, Elizabeth has an MA (1st Class Honours) a Post-Graduate Diploma in Applied Psychology specializing in Industrial, Work and Organisational psychology and is currently a Doctoral Candidate at the University of Auckland. She is a registered psychologist and a committee member of both the Auckland I/O Psychology Special Interest Group and the NZ Coaching Psychology Special Interest Group.

Libby has experience in coaching, recruitment, performance management and works with a range of businesses in all aspects of performance management and HR systems. Her work has included the design and development of on-line career and development tools as well as the implementation of new HR and organisational development systems, procedures and training.

Working with individuals from graduates & students through to senior executives, Libby has a passion for offering detailed psychometric assessment interpretation and career coaching to help people take their career steps in the right direction.

Kylie Dawson

Frontline Administrator

Kylie is the frontline receptionist for Whr24u and she will be here to meet and greet students and parents with her friendly smile when they arrive. Kylie also provides administration support to the Whr24U team.