Hundreds of young leaders on campus for Inspire2015

Over three hundred secondary school students from across Auckland donned red socks for Fuji Xerox Inspire2015 on 3 July, a Leadership Week initiative supported by AUT Business School and the Sir Peter Blake Trust.

The event featured a fantastic line-up of speakers sharing inspirational stories from their personal experiences and leadership lessons learned along the way. This year’s speakers included: the Minister for Youth Hon Nikki Kaye, Lady Pippa Blake from the Sir Peter Blake Trust (who shared the story behind the red socks of Leadership Week), renowned New Zealand entrepreneur Claudia Batten, AUT student and multi-media personality Joshua Iosefo and inventor Sir Ray Avery.

The theme of Inspire2015 was ‘Global Citizenship’ and many of the speakers focused on how the New Zealand way of thinking about business and opportunity had helped them to become leaders.

Fuji Xerox Managing Director Gavin Pollard said the theme reflected the values Sir Peter Blake was so passionate about himself especially “at a time when young people need to be inspired to deal with the environmental and humanitarian crises of their time.”

Dean of the AUT Business School Professor Geoff Perry said the event was a great platform to help develop New Zealand’s future leaders.

“Developing the potential of young leaders is something we do every day in the Business School.  During Leadership Week we can extend that to include secondary students with events like Shadow a Leader and Inspire2015. We have a big part to play in developing young leaders by providing opportunities to kick-start their education and careers, and meet some of New Zealand’s greatest leaders.