Women of the mountains

Mel Tweedie
General Manager Sales & Marketing

This year will mark Mel Tweedie’s tenth season with NZSki, and she still loves it as much as her first. The General Manager of Sales & Marketing started out as the Marketing Communications Manager in 2015 before getting promoted to her current role when she was on maternity leave in 2022.

One of the highlights of the role for her is marketing something she’s really passionate about.

“I love that we get to connect people with our beautiful mountains and help create a lifelong passion for so many skiers and riders. The mountains are such a special place and I feel very privileged to be able to work in them,” Tweedie says.

At the moment she’s most proud of the team’s recent launch of three new brand campaigns – one for each of the mountains.

“Each mountain brand is so unique and distinct with its own vibe and stories to be told. The work we are doing in this space is critical to build demand from both current and future audiences.”

 

Fiona Boyer
General Manager Customer

For the past five years Fiona Boyer has had a laser focus on how customer experience is delivered across the three mountains and at the Snow Centre. Growing up in Queenstown she spent 22 back-to-back winters as a young alpine ski racer, instructor and trainer before moving to the North Island and having a family.

“It’s been great to come full circle and end up back at home in Queenstown, in the snowsports industry,” Boyer says.

Boyer echoes her colleagues sentiments – loving the combination of professional experience and an adoration of the mountains. This year her team are introducing self-service pass pickup kiosks.

“Say goodbye to queues and embrace digital transformation. The shift to online purchasing globally has been significant, and for the ski industry it means guests can now purchase and book online and pickup their MyPass cards at any of our locations without needing to stand in lines – the future in our guest experience environment is exciting.”

 

Christine Law
Assistant Ski Area Manager at Coronet Peak

Originally hailing from Canada, Christine Law cut her teeth in the industry working for Whistler Blackcomb. Starting at NZSki in 2015, she worked in various roles before stepping into Assistant Ski Area Manager at Coronet Peak. One of her favourite parts of the job is seeing familiar faces coming back each year.

“The connections you make on the mountain last a lifetime,” Law says. “I’ve stopped saying goodbye to people, and I barely go to leaving parties anymore because I always end up seeing people somewhere down the track. People that love the snowsports industry spin within the same orbit and you’ll always find someone you know on the snow.”

This year, she’s been championing the Snow Centre Rentals project, giving guests the opportunity to set-up the night before, resulting in less time lining up in the morning.

“We’re opening a brand-new flagship location in town that’s going to give our guests the ability to pick up rental gear the night before they plan on skiing. This means those with ski/snowboard lessons only need to worry about their coffee orders and sunscreen.”

 

Louise McQuillan
General Manager Technical Operations

Louise McQuillan has been working with NZSki since 2017 and looks after the technical operations. Her responsibilities are split across many areas including infrastructure, transport, asset planning, major project delivery, and leading health, safety and wellbeing strategies. “The best part about working in my role is that I’m able to combine my passion of skiing with my professional ambitions in such a beautiful part of the country,” McQuillan says.

She’s also project managing the new Shadow Basin Express project and has spent much of this summer at The Remarkables overseeing progress.
“I’m excited about how this new high-speed chairlift will change how people ski the Remarkables, by opening up over 47 hectares of new lift-accessed terrain. I’m proud of how the team has pulled together over our summer period – as anyone who has been involved in construction knows, you will always have unexpected challenges along the way, but we’ve had a really collaborative team.”

 

Molly Munro
General Manager of Food & Beverage

After nine years at Mt Hutt in the food and beverage department, Molly Munro relocated in 2022 to Queenstown for a new management position. Now in her 12th season, Munro overseas food and beverage operations across all three mountains, with a particular focus on sustainability. Munro says she works with many hard-working and incredibly intelligent women in leadership roles at the company. “These women go above and beyond to get the job done and provide unwavering support to their teams, it’s incredibly inspiring,” Munro says.

One of the projects that Munro continues to spearhead is waste reduction in the department.

“One of our key projects this year is to divert as much waste from land-fill as possible. We’re introducing sorting stations to reduce the number of customer facing bins. Our team will assist customers with their trays and waste while ensuring that recycling and compost streams remain uncontaminated, diverting as much waste as possible from landfill.”