Scholarship winner Yonder Munday.

Awarded a Leading Light scholarship by the chartered accountants’ professional body, Yonder Munday has a passion for numbers.

From Flaxmere and of Ngāti Kahungunu and Ngāpuhi descent, the Bachelor of Business Studies student says maths was her favourite subject at Te Kura Kaupapa Māori o Ngāti Kahungunu ki Heretaunga.

Also good at numbers, her father, businessman Terry Munday, died in Yonder’s first year at EIT. She lost her grandmother just six months later. Grieving for them both, Yonder feels she lost traction with her studies.

“It was Dad’s expectation that I become an accountant that gave me the drive I needed to continue,” she says.

The mother-of-two expects to finish her degree mid-next year and then wants to work towards becoming a chartered accountant.

Her scholarship was one of four awarded by Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand (CA ANZ) and the Ngā Kaitatau Māori a Aotearoa (National Māori Accountants Network)
at a hui-a-tau (conference) in Rotorua.

“These scholarships are aimed at empowering Māori students to become leaders and shapers of business and finance,” says CA ANZ spokesperson Peter Vial.

Yonder is interested in assisting Māori enterprises to get off the ground and flourish. She also wants to be part of normalising the use of te reo Māori in everyday business.

Dovetailing study with working as an administrator and kaiako for Kohanga Reo o Taniwha Tumeke in Hastings, she has found the business school’s Māori mentor, Rebecca Clarke, an awesome” support during her time at EIT.

Rebecca is keen to build on Yonder’s success by ensuring a strong representation of EIT’s Māori business students at the annual conference and awards event.

“Yonder came back so inspired and impressed,” Rebecca says. “She’s a catalyst for that to happen.”