Editor, author, mother, lecturer – Lynley Edmeades shares her stories
It’s been a busy year for Lynley Edmeades – Lynley is an author, an English lecturer at Otago, and editor of Aotearoa’s longest running arts and literary journal Landfall Tauraka. She is also the coordinator of the new Masters in Creative Writing launched at the University this year, and has just published her fourth book, Hiding Places. Recently, Lynley has helped organise celebrations for Landfall Tauraka's 250th edition. An Otago alumna, Lynley talks to iOU about being a student at Otago, all her day jobs, her new book and how she manages to fit everything in.
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Taking the gondola home
In the winter, Otago MBA and Physical Education graduate Bridget Legnavsky starts her day with a cross-country ski with her dog before work and ends it by taking the gondola home. Bridget is President and CEO of Sugar Bowl ski resort in Tahoe, California, a role she began in 2022 after working as General Manager at Cardrona Alpine Resort and Treble Cone Ski Resort in Wānaka since 2014.Bridget talks about why she and her family decided it was time for an adventure, how she fitted the MBA Online programme around her busy life, her wide-ranging experience in community governance, business leadership, climate change strategy, and fashion. And how she hadn’t expected her new job to be a little like “being mayor of a small town”.
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Riding the electric wave in Africa
At Otago, Law, Chinese Language and Political Studies graduate Josh Whale embraced Dunedin’s university culture – he joined the tramping and rowing clubs, met his future wife Claire at a concert in the student union, and went on two student exchanges. After six years in intellectual property law in China, and influenced by Al Gore’s documentary on climate change, An Inconvenient Truth, Josh decided to make the leap and set up Ampersand, an EV energy tech start-up, in Kigali, Rwanda. Josh began by developing electric motorcycles powered by smart AI optimized batteries suited to Africa’s tough roads. Ampersand has since expanded into Nairobi, Kenya, with more than 5,000 e-motos in operation overall, each one cutting two tons of carbon per year, and delivering life-changing savings to drivers by drastically reducing their operating costs. Ampersand’s fleet now covers a distance equivalent to the moon and back daily, contributing to cleaner air, healthier communities, and a more sustainable future.
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A double life in medicine and writing
Eileen Merriman manages to combine two successful careers into one working day - she’s a consultant haematologist at North Shore Hospital and is also one of New Zealand’s most successful authors. In August, Eileen won the NZ Book Awards Young Adult Fiction Award for her novel Catch a Falling Star. We ask her about her double life, where she gets her story ideas and how her job in medicine and her writing career work together.
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From small-town values to world-leading tech
In this wide-ranging kōrero, Marketing graduate Steven Renata traverses small-town values, rugby, failing and then finding himself at Otago, discovering aerobics and travelling the world with Les Mills International, coming home and launching himself into the world of tech.Today, Steven is Kaiwhakahaere Matua | Managing Director CEO of Kiwa Digital, a Māori-led creative agency that develops technology to amplify indigenous voices, stories and cultures, including the pioneering VoiceQ software used for dubbing hits such as Squid Game and The Lion King to te reo Māori and its sister software, CultureQ, which is enhancing cultural capability across New Zealand’s public and private sectors.
from the Alumni team at the University of Otago.Join us as we explore some of the out-of-the-ordinary day jobs of our inspirational, global alumni community.
New Zealand