INTHEBLACK October 2021 - Magazine - Page 44
NEXT
GEN
STORY BELINDA PARKES
PHOTOGRAPHY AROHA METCALF
GRACE UNDER
PRESSURE
M E L A N I E G E T T I N S A S A H A S A L W AY S T H R I V E D I N T H E H I G H - P R E S S U R E
E N V I R O N M E N T O F C O M P E T I T I V E S P O R T, A N D S H E U S E S L E S S O N S L E A R N E D
ON THE FIELD IN HER WORKPLACE.
A
s an elite athlete, you are
constantly evaluated and judged.
You face failure, as well as success,
and teamwork and communication are
fundamental to your gameplay and the
decisions you make under pressure.
These are attributes national-level softballer
and accountant Melanie Gettins ASA says have
proven just as valuable to her in the business
world as they have on the playing field.
Gettins is production planning coordinator
at Tumu Timbers Limited, a timber processing
company based in Hawke’s Bay on the east
coast of New Zealand’s North Island. She is also
an important member of New Zealand’s softball
community, having represented her country at
six world championships, playing catcher on
the White Sox women’s softball team.
The sport has taken Gettins to the
Netherlands, Czech Republic, Germany,
Italy, Venezuela, Argentina, Canada, Australia,
Japan and China. It has also earned her a
US college scholarship to study business
administration and accounting – an
opportunity only offered to a handful
of female Kiwi softballers before her.
“As much as I love softball, I knew it was
never going to provide a life for me,” says
44 ITB October 2021
Gettins. “It was fun, but it created more bills
for me than anything else.”
While she had pondered the idea of
business management, ultimately Gettins was
drawn to the problem-solving elements of
accounting, and liked that it offered
transferable skills and core principles that
would give her a solid foundation in whatever
direction she took her career.
Upon finishing her degree, Gettins returned
to New Zealand and secured her first
accounting job with a public practice firm.
Soon, a chance crossing of paths with a
CPA Australia representative identified a
new career progression opportunity – a
CPA Australia Maori Scholarship.
CHALLENGE ACCEPTED
While still self-funding her international
softball tours to the tune of at least A$10,000
a year, Gettins says being granted the
CPA Australia Maori Scholarship took away the
last of the barriers that had been holding her
back from obtaining her CPA qualification. She
accepted the challenge and took the plunge.
At about the same time, Tumu Timbers was
looking to take on a management trainee,
gaining experience across different business
departments. “It was a cool opportunity for
a girl who still wasn’t sure what she wanted
to be when she grew up,” laughs Gettins.
She started in despatch, gaining an
understanding of sales, before moving into
production planning, followed by accounting.
She says taking on the management
accountant’s role brought her knowledge of
the business full circle by linking it all together
from a financial perspective.
By then, the business had grown, and it
wasn’t too long before Tumu Timbers needed
to expand its operations to meet demand. The
company took on more staff to form a
production planning team and appointed
Gettins as supervisor.
Returning to the production side of the
business excited Gettins, who says that, while
the accounting role had been great for her
knowledge of the company, she’d found it
was often about looking back.
She was eager to be more forward focused,
driving better production systems and
efficiencies for the company.
“In production planning, you are really in the
thick of it, so there is a whole lot of pressure,”
says Gettins. “Every decision you make can
waste thousands and thousands of dollars, or