Our Hawkins and Downer team attended the Amotai – Supplier Diversity NZ – Meet the Buyers event in Auckland. The event was a buzzing, huge success and saw over 260 attendees. Hawkins and Downer is at the forefront of building greater diversity by establishing a strategy to connect with a greater number of Māori and Pasifika-led businesses.

“The opportunity to meet so many Māori and Pasifika subcontracting businesses at one time was exhilarating. Marie Almandoz, Hawkins Commercial Manager, and I spoke to more than 40 different operators and were impressed with their passion and range of capabilities. With the establishment of our smaller projects offering over the next year, we see additional opportunities to support the growth of a number of the smaller businesses. For larger businesses, we will ensure that we reach out with our future tender opportunities. We extend our thanks to the Amotai team for delivering such an energised successful event,” says Phillip Helleur, Project Director at Hawkins.

Amotai is a nationwide initiative that connects Māori and Pasifika businesses to procurement opportunities, and we have partnered with them as a way to connect to new suppliers we may otherwise not have known about.