Cassie Roma on curiosity and courage
A quick browse of Cassie Roma’s LinkedIn profile will have most people thinking ‘what the hell have I been doing with my life?’ The Californian, who moved to New Zealand in her twenties, is a founder, director, creative strategist, documentarian, TV star, storyteller, TEDx alumni, executive advisor, board chair, career coach, brand ambassador, keynote speaker and emcee, and the list goes on.
Speaking ahead of her speech at the Westpac Women in Business conference, Roma says it is curiosity and backing herself that have shaped her career across continents, industries and platforms over the decades.
“I think curiosity is the biggest superpower for women in business,” she says. “All the courses I took at uni were built on my curiosity and throughout my career I’ve had jobs I made for myself because I was curious about something, and needed to learn about it, whether that’s marketing, social media, community around social media, advertising models.
“I’ve also followed my nose, or really my heart. If something felt right, felt creative, and felt good to me, I had the courage to go along with it.”
That curiosity and perpetual upskilling has meant she’s always willing to jump into something new. Roma recalls a university professor at the University of California Santa Barbara telling her that while men typically apply for a role when they meet 60% of the criteria, women wait until they meet 100%. That stuck.
“She told me, if you change jobs every couple of years, you’ll double your earning potential,” Roma says. “You’ll move from a job to a job, you’ll learn, you’ll gain necessary skills. You’ll have different variations on work that you can do in industries across verticals. And was like, ‘Ooh, I like that’.”
That’s led to a career in which she’s driven brand and social media strategies for Air New Zealand, ANZ Bank, The Warehouse Group, Mighty River Power and NZME, founded consultancy & multi-media business CR&Co, and appeared on The Apprentice Aotearoa as the right-hand to the CEO and Celebrity Treasure Island.
Taking the leap to the next role is where the courage comes in, she says.
“But I appreciated that if you want to grow, you need challenge, and therefore you need to get comfortable with being challenged. I know, no matter what happens, I’m still curious and I will work my butt off to learn and to make things make sense, so things will be alright.”
It’s also about having the courage to speak up and ask questions.
“There can be a reluctance in New Zealand, especially for women, to ask questions. We’re told to kind of be quiet and listen. But this American accent has helped, even when it wobbles and shakes, because I can ask questions, and I’ve used that to my advantage asking ‘why is that?’ and ‘what is that?’, and also backing myself when I know I’m the expert in the room, or just when I know I have a good idea.”
That attitude now fuels CR&Co, her Auckland-based creative consultancy, and her latest project: Heal the Hauraki - a documentary on work to reverse the ecological collapse of the Hauraki Gulf, told through the lens of modern science, indigenous knowledge and wahine Māori.
