| Website | thecreativecollec... |
| Blog | thecreativecollec... |
| @creativecollect | |
| Birthplace | Wellington, New Zealand |
A serial and award winning entrepreneur, Yvette was born on the fortunate cusp of Generation X & Y into a techie family in Wellington New Zealand which at any one time had several computers littered about the house. She started her first business at the age of 17 – a newspaper – which was bought out by an American entrepreneur after its first issue. She created her second business and first e-commerce site in 2002, Tikanga Teeshirts – an online tee-shirt business. Within one month of launching she received a Government Grant and won a website award.
She travelled the world for seven years from 1998 to 2004, the highlight of which was negotiating a free year around the world ticket for herself and her partner, and a digital camera to write a blog and submit pictures to a UK travel website. In between travels she worked in the media, PR & marketing fields across industries.
In 2006 she sold the online teeshirt business and concentrated on launching The Creative Collective a busy and rapidly growing creative services agency offering social media, PR, marketing, branding, websites, online marketing, graphic design, print and more to a wide range of clients located on the Sunshine Coast, inter-state and internationally. In 2008 they began franchising with 1 franchisee now in operation in Newcastle and many more due to come on board shortly.
In just her second year of business she won the Queensland Small Business Champions Young Entrepreneur category and has since gone on to win or be a finalist in numerous other local, regional and national business awards including winning the Commonwealth Business Owner of the Year at the Telstra Business Women’s Awards in 2010 (Queensland) and travelling to New York as a finalist in the International Awards for Women in Business Awards (also known as the Stevies).
She is now the regional coordinator for Australia and New Zealand for the “Stevie Awards†the world’s premier business awards which encompass four awards programs including The International Business Awards, the Stevie Awards for Women in Business, The American Business Awards, and the Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service.
Yvette is also passionate about developing and delivering education and training opportunities. She is currently working with 100 small business owners in the Sunshine Coast, Whitsundays and Bundaberg industries to deliver the Small Business Online (SBO) program, a federally funded program through AusIndustry as well as offering a series of 25 webinars to business owners across Queensland as a result of winning a contract with DEEDI (Department of Employment, Economic Development & Innovation).
She also regularly provides educational opportunities to the local community by running ‘Web Wednesday’ events - a monthly professional development &networking event, and is regularly called on to speak for other organisations, or be interviewed or provide commentary for media on her areas of expertise. The Creative Collective also produce educational material in the form of audios, dvds, ebooks, and programs.
An international freelance writer of many years and an author (see www.morethanmeetstheeye.co.nz/), she has been the online content editor of a massive player in the UK magazine market (http://www.tntmagazine.com/), and has consulted numerous businesses in New Zealand, the UK and Australia on their marketing strategies, in particular online, and built many websites.
See www.thecreativecollective.com.au for more information on her agency and www.stevieawards.com for more information on The Stevies.
The Creative Collective explained in 1 minute.
Added: 5/23/13
