Kiwi Business Story: Celia Crosbie from Scope Media NZ

Celia Crosbie Founder and Managing Director of Scope Media NZ is a Leadership Development Programme alumni.

This Kiwi Business Story is based on a podcast from 06 July 2022, and all figures quoted are from that time. You can enjoy the complete podcast  here.  

Who is Celia?

I am a mum, I am a wife, and I am a business owner. We have two children; I really enjoy the busyness of this stage of life. I enjoy cooking, baking, and running the children around after school to their various activities. I enjoy shopping and catching up with friends. The social side of things is important to me too. I guess, becoming a mother has become a part of my career now and has helped define me as a person too. Conversely, when becoming a mother, I lost a lot of confidence in myself which coincided with a career change from journalism, moving from being a News Journalist through to a Communication Journalist, I lost a lot of confidence at that point in time, and I am also learning to manage impostor syndrome.


What has your career journey looked like? 

My first job I landed was just a fill in role. I worked for Newstalk ZB in Christchurch, before taking a full-time job in Levin for the Horowhenua Cavity Chronicle. I got to do some cool stuff there when I was the local government reporter and the health reporter, I got to cover some cool rounds and meet some amazing people. I then applied for a job down in Wanaka to work for the Otago Daily Times, that was back in 2005 when I moved here, and then I worked for the ODT for a couple of years.

I then met Hamish, my husband. We decided to do an OE, we left our jobs, and we went to London, and I worked as a journalist for industry magazines. I also worked for global transport and highway consultancy doing comms and that role was fun. We came back to Wanaka in 2008, I got a job for the Mountain Scene, working and commuting over from Wanaka to Queenstown every day.

Hamish and I then decided to start having a family and got married, got pregnant. I knew that commuting every day was not going to be an option. So, I thought, well, I might as well give it a go and set up my own thing. Originally, it was going to be a website copywriting business. I soon realized that that was not going to be a viable option, so I decided to make the move into communications.

I remember, my old editor at the time saying to me, what have you got to lose? I had just recently won an award and he said, this is your opportunity, what have you got to lose? You can always go back, and I did not go back. I really do love News Media, but I also have found a new passion and am growing a career in Communications. I set up Scope Media eight weeks before having my first-born Charlotte. I remember organizing a media pitch for the Sunday Star Times for a client after being induced on the hospital bed.

I never realized that having children was going to mean that I would lose so much confidence in my own ability. I am really pleased that I did that and just took the bull by the horns and set it up. So over that time, we have just really grown the team with like-minded individuals. I really focus on bringing people together who are better than me. I love encouraging other people to really shine in their own strengths.


What's one thing you wish you knew at the start of your career, and in this case, business journey?

I guess my big thing has always been about striving to be the best that I can be. Claudia McDonald from Mango Communications, she is one of my heroes in the PR industry. I had dinner with her recently in Auckland, and she said, how do you know when you have reached success? How do you know when you have gotten there? And it is a good question, I have not figured out the answer yet. But I think the advice that I could give myself would be around being kinder to myself.


When did you first hear of The Icehouse and The Leadership Development Programme?

I had heard about The Icehouse for a long time, but I did not really know too much about it. I knew that you guys did cool stuff. But what made me engaged was an email from Te Puni Kōkiri, about a Cadetship scholarship. I applied and got it, which granted some money to go towards LDP (Leadership Development Programme), and then I paid the rest. I am profoundly grateful for Te Puni Kōkiri for giving me such an amazing opportunity.


Have you made any changes? Or implemented anything into your business and your lifestyle since or during the programme? 

I have my little book; everyone knew in the cohort that I was the geek that wrote everything down. There is so much material in the course that I have taken away. The timing was perfect, because we did a lot of reviews of our own strategic positioning and our branding, which is still a work in progress. We have now defined our purpose better, our culture, our values, and we have established our vision and the strategy to fit. It has been truly a profound experience for me, and I highly recommend it.

The team bonding and exercise at the start of the course, we had such an amazing cohort, everyone was awesome. It was a truly memorable experience. We stay connected through our WhatsApp group. We catch up every couple of weeks, or at least once a month, and just bounce ideas off each other and talk about the highlights and the lowlights of the week.