Almost 40 years married, that’s over 100 gifting occasions, and no lingerie in sight!

BUT he did buy me shares in bra company, which is like having the key to the cookie jar.  It’s a great excuse to buy new bras – after all, as an owner, I need to test-drive the product.

Seriously though, the evidence shows that I am not alone;  that most women would love their partner to buy them lingerie, yet few ever do.  My Rose & Thorne “Bra Census” – this year digging into women’s bra stories in both Australia and New Zealand – confirmed yet again that husbands, partners, lovers are missing a trick in the gifting stakes.  Just 14% report that their partners buy them lingerie (albeit with mixed success), compared to a whopping 60% who would love it if they did!

So I’m sending a message to the MEN out there – this is a bra story for you!
(I’m assuming that if your partner is a woman, she already knows to buy you bras)

Sure, there are some who women who reject the idea of lingerie as a gift – but hey, that’s probably because they don’t think there’s much chance getting it right – after all most women are wearing the wrong size anyway, and that’s based on what they choose for themselves!

But look at the odds – chances are that most of us are in the majority, women secretly hankering after that thoughtful bundle of silky softness and support.

And seriously, given that we’re the ones usually buying our men their socks and underwear, wouldn’t it be awesome if they returned the favour occasionally?

Tomorrow is my birthday….  just saying!

It’s so easy to express outrage:  outrage at the abomination that is the “executive orders” emanating from the new president of that place that we previously respected as the “leader of the free world”.

So many of my friends, and many of their friends, are filling my social media feeds with protest, with disgust, with a clear rejection of the politics of fear and hate that sadly has marked the start of this new year.  I am with you.  I too celebrate the scientists, who have rejected their muzzling orders with a giant F’U;  the lawyers who have flocked to airports to support and represent those locked out despite their green cards, their student visas, their established family life as legal American residents.

But perhaps unlike you, I reflect on what comes next, and wonder:  will you still speak up when the stakes are raised?

Will you still speak up, when doing so causes your friends and family legally in the US to appear on FBI watchlists;  when you are denied entry to the US yourself because of something you’ve said on Facebook;  when your children are denied that job or promised place at the university of their dreams because of your anti-Trump tirade.

For this is how it starts – and I have lived in this type of society.  A society where even within the bosom of one’s close family, politics was never spoken for fear that the security police would come in the night and simply ‘disappear’ you.  “That will never happen in America”, I hear you say, and wow, I hope you’re right.  But the reality is that fear and disenfranchisement breeds tyrants, and that is what we are witnessing right now, right there in Washington, DC.  How far are we truly from a “presidential guard” that enforces with those ever present guns that right of the president to rule by decree rather than by due process?

Somehow, we in the West seem to be inured to tyrants when they appear in societies that are not like us.  We look on Mugabe, on Zuma, and on the many other Asian, African and Eastern European tyrants of the past (and present) with a removed, analytical interest, never for a moment thinking this could happen closer to home.  But Trump and the US is not that other type of society – these are “our kind of people”, or at least, we thought that they were.  We are witnessing the rise of a tyrant within our very midst, within the heart of the free world…  and it is truly frightening.

So I ask you again.  Will you still speak out, when the stakes are raised, when it is no longer “safe” to do so, when there are repercussions not necessarily directly for you, for others whom you hold dear?

For that is the true test of who we are.  Tonight I watched with dismay as our our own NZ Prime Minister side-stepped the issue, simply saying that this – the cruel and ignorant rejection of Muslims en masse – is “not something NZ would do”.  Well, I should hope not – but honestly, I expect my government to go further than that.

While the people at large, the public, the “common man”, are trying to hold Trump to account, I expect that my government will do the same – and frankly, bugger the consequence!

I always knew that when I retired from my day job, I wanted to be a company director.  I never imagined how hard that would be – after all, if governance is at least in part about strategy, and I’d made a very good living shaping strategy for my many corporate and public sector clients, why would I not be highly desirable in the governance pool?

Well, it turns out that the drive for diversity in governance doesn’t actually extend to recognising the value of people who have started and grown their own businesses.  In the traditional governance pool of potential, I am labelled by what I am not:  not a corporate C-suite executive (past or present), not a partner (current or ex-) in a major law or accounting firm, not a high profile academic, not a has-been politician.   (Note that I do not say “not a man”, because I remain convinced that my female-ness is not the actual barrier.  It never has been – but that’s the topic of another rant yet to come.)

But undeterred by my obvious disadvantages – the things that I am not – I embarked on a concerted ‘networking’ effort.  The director community was, I have to say, extremely generous in giving me advice and encouragement – but in reality, I am reminded of our exhortation to angel investors to just be honest with founders and say “no”, quickly and firmly.

Nevertheless, in the absence of a clear ‘not in a million years’ message, I persevered.  Alongside building up my interests in young companies through mentoring and investment, I discovered that the easiest directorships to get are on those early stage company boards – positions of low prestige, massive challenge, and massive opportunity to ‘make a difference’.

This appealed to my values. In  my business, in place of our company vision and values, there was a simple statement on the wall:  “I am not just here to make a living.  I am here to make a difference.”  For me, helping entrepreneurial, high growth start ups succeed, is the one thing I can do to ensure that New Zealand does not become just another Pacific Island – a place where old people live, and young people visit to holiday or see their whanau.  I’m here to make a difference.

And so it is that I have developed a bit of a following as ‘a font of knowledge’ – note, I do not say “the font of all knowledge” – on the topic of governance for start up companies in New Zealand.

With  8 ‘early stage governance’ workshops under my belt, attended by over 100 aspiring early stage directors, I guess I can lay claim to at least being in touch with the issues of governance for the early stage companies that I and my fellow “angel investors” support with what we like to call “smart money” – investment dollars that bring with them time and involvement to help the business grow faster, and spread further, and hopefully make us, and the founders, richer!

New Zealand is the ultimate ‘upstart’ nation:  at the top (or close to the top) of the World Bank’s list of the easiest places to start a business, to do business.  My fellow ‘angels’ and I invest in some 120 start-ups a year, and with the investment comes the requirement to establish a governance board, a board of directors to guide the company to the future.

This is where I have cut my governance teeth – in an environment where directors are donkey deep in the doing, where ‘noses in, fingers out’ has no meaning at all, where the primary concerns are ‘runway’ and ‘burn-rate’, and we, the directors, are standing shoulder to shoulder with the entrepreneur;  believing, risking and literally sprinting from one milestone to the next.

The war stories are legendary, the battle scars raw…  early stage boards are not for the faint-hearted.   But as I observe the dialogues in the traditional governance community, I can’t help but reflect on the palpable lack of enterprise;  the investment in the established status quo;  and, honestly, the lack of support for what is, in effect, the ‘sub-culture’ of directors getting down and dirty to help grow NZ Inc.

While established companies generously offer internships to ‘future directors’; while the Institute of Directors offers ‘mentoring for diversity’;  there is a large pool of governance talent cutting its teeth in the most challenging of environments, in companies that will ultimately make a real difference to New Zealand’s future. With minimal resources, minimal access to advice, little but their intelligence and native smarts to guide alarmingly frequent decisions based on limited information, these early stage company directors are making decisions that will ultimately shape our economic future.  If we’re going to build another 10 Fonterras (and I truly hesitate to hold them up as an example of anything), start-up land is where that begins.

“What about the risk?”, I hear you ask.  The reality is that risk management is not about minimising risk.  It is about understanding the level of risk you’re willing to take to maximise your opportunities, and nowhere is that more clearly understood than in the startup sector.

Perhaps we on these start-up boards should be offering internships to more traditional, experienced directors, to experience the reality of governance life at the coalface of the future.

But meanwhile, how ironic is it that the easiest entree into governance is in companies which have the biggest challenges, the least resources, little or no access to professional advice, and the least ability to pay their directors what they are worth.  Nevertheless, I and my fellow start-up directors persevere, not just to keep a beady eye on our investments, but to make a difference for these companies that we believe will ultimately make a difference to New Zealand.

Today, the ugly face of Christian fundamentalism showed itself in my church, and it was not good.

Fundamentally, I know that the Bible says that those who do not accept Jesus cannot be saved.  But in an alarming and particularly poorly timed sermon, our guest preacher (a student from the local theological college) propounded his view that those who are not with us are against us – enemies of Christ, in his words.

On this day of all days, when we should have been standing arm in arm with our brothers and sisters of every creed, whatever they believe in.  At a time when I want to rush up to the Muslim woman walking down my street and tell her that I know Isis does not represent her, nor the majority of her fellow believers; at a time when I want, irrationally, to beg my son in London to come home… instead I sat seething, arguing in my head with the narrow-mindedness I was witnessing before me.

Fundamentally, of course, he is right… and that is why we call that view “fundamentalism”.  No amount of “I’m sorry if this offends you” or “I’m happy to debate this with you” will change the fact that it is this very view, technically “correct” but in no way “right”, that has been at the heart of every religious war in the history of mankind.  This is why the crusades were fought, why we endured the “troubles” in Northern Ireland – the list goes on and on.

Indeed, man’s inhumanity to man is so often justified by religious belief, the belief that we are the chosen people, and you are not, that this on its own turns many away from religion of any sort.

Now of course our young(ish) soon-to-be-minister was not suggesting we go out and slaughter the infidel!   No, we need to hold them close, love them and use our best efforts to save them – but never forgetting that they are the enemy.

I wanted to stand up right there and rail against his narrow view of what I consider to be my religion, my beliefs.  I wanted to remind him, and the gathered congregation, that Chistian fundamentalists are no better than fundamentalists of other cloths and creeds.  And that having the ear of believers is a privilege, a privilege that gives your words power to do good and evil, more so perhaps than guns.

I realise that my beliefs are not his beliefs, and that 2 minutes into any debate I would have revealed myself as what he might consider a faux-Christian at best, at worst even an imposter.

Instead I was saved by the bell…  actually by the arrival of the children from Sunday school, with a particularly rowdy grandson giving me the excuse I needed to leave the service to play outside in the tree, to reflect on why I was there at all.   I come most Sundays, bringing my mother and grand-daughter, each of whom cares more about the church than I do – I come because I care for them, and because just occasionally a precious gem emerges from a sermon that resonates, supports or simply comforts me.

Am I the only one in those pews each week who does not believe that Noah actually took the animals two by two into the ark?   Literally?  Who knows? Who cares?

But this I do know.  I could not stand by and say nothing in the face of such fundamentalism.

And no, I am not sorry if my views offend you.

Is colonialism dead, or is it in fact alive and well in Africa (again)?  And when is “progress” just progress, and when is foreign “investment” to be welcomed, with no strings attached?

Like a woman with low self-esteem who keeps being attracted to unsuitable partners, it might appear that some African countries are! just maybe, succumbing yet again to the “blankets and guns” enticements preferred by foreign explorers, using “development” as a rationale for establishing and securing a supply chain.

For wasn’t that what the Dutch were doing when they settled in the Cape of Good Hope… establishing and securing a supply chain for precious spices from the east?  In this case, the precious cargo is minerals, the supply chain is roads, lots of roads, and the colonisers are from the east.    

Most visibly on this trip, in Swakopmund, which is booming thanks to a large influx of Chinese workers.  The Chinese, we were told, have bought a 40% share in Rossing uranium mine, and are building a new wholly owned mine just down the road at Huseb due to open in January, which will be the largest opencast uranium mine in the world.  The locals have a small grumble about failure to employ “enough” local workers, but are otherwise pleased to embrace the progress and foreign investment.

Elsewhere in Africa, it’s roads that appear to be the focus (maybe not required here in Namibia where the mines are literally a stone’s throw from the rapidly expanding port at Walvis Bay).  In Rwanda last year, I blogged about the amazing roadworks, literally from one end of the country to the other – overseen and funded by Chinese expertise and money, but employing local villagers for each stretch, leading to a patchwork of stretches of road in varying levels of completeness.  When done, that road will take all the heavy traffic between Burundi and the port at Dar Es Salaam away from the sensitive wildlife areas.  A good thing, surely…or just more of the supply chain.

And our fellow travellers, Anne and Willy, who have just driven down from Malawi though Mozambique, report simlarly significant, similarly funded, roadworks underway.  

One cannot help but be reminded of the long ago ambition of that great colonial, Cecil John Rhodes, whose ambition it was to build a railway line from Cape Town to Cairo.  Seems his ambition may yet be realised, only not quite as he envisaged, with the romance of rail replaced by the efficient practicality of winding black tarmac – all in the name of progress.  

I recall a old man in Zanzibar telling me some 10 years ago that Eastern investment in his country was preferable to Western investment, which inevitably came with strings attached.  Expectations of democracy, and western “standards” of law and order, for example.    And hence my question – is it still colonialism when the deal done is simply investment in return for resources, with no intention to “civilise” or indeed, to colonise in any major way.

But I am no historian, no sociological scholar…  And as my dear old dad would have said, I am probably talking about things I know nothing about!