Partner Spotlight: Stand Tall's Pascale Hyboud-Peron

This week's Spotlight is on Pascale Hyboud-Peron from Stand Tall.

We caught up with Pascale and asked 5 questions to find out more about her as an individual.

‍Tell us a little bit about yourself and your background.

I was born and raised in France then moved to the UK at age 20 to do my MA at the University of Hull. Upon graduating I decided to stay in England and went on to qualify as a secondary school teacher. I taught in Kent for 9 years before seeing an ad promoting “TeachNZ” in 1998. On 27 January 1999 I arrived in Tauranga with 3 suitcases on a one-way ticket and started teaching at Tauranga Girls' College. I was offered plenty of opportunities at the College which took me out of teaching and opened my eyes to the complexities of the unique environments in large schools.

How did you get into the area of work you’re in?

By a succession of twists and turns, and following my nose, but mostly by meeting amazing inspiring people along the way! I am currently the Founding Manager of Stand Tall, a Community Trust whose purpose is to increase young people's entrepreneurial capability.

After a one-year sabbatical, I resigned from my role at Tauranga Girls’ College and volunteered at the Languages Teachers Association where I discovered a passion for, and deep interest in, community building. I led a few projects that introduced me to digital skills, web development and e-learning. I went on to contract to the Ministry of Education supporting schools with Learning Management Systems and the early days of e-portfolio pedagogy adoption.

Along the way I needed to learn to organise myself as a ‘business’ in order to trade my skills! These were my first steps into entrepreneurship. As my awareness of the challenges in the world of Education increased, I also became hooked in the world of “startups”, these agile fast-growing fledgling businesses powered by technology, solving problems across so many different areas!

I went on to meet my first co-founders  at a Startup Weekend event. Together we opened a co-working space (Stand Tall is HQ’ed at Basestation co-working space in Tauranga) and created an enterpreneurship support organisation. I managed operations as well as designed and delivered programmes for impact entrepreneurs,  including young people.

These experiences, learnings and the fabulous people I met along the way have all been instrumental to shape my practice of community building and apply it to create the conditions for all youth to maximise their potential so that they can build the future they want to see, through entrepreneurship. So this is where I am today!

What motivates you to do what you do?

I have this clear vision that one day my work is not needed: all young people express their voice, participate, are resilient and self-actualised. The pieces of the systems are plugged in and their mana, courage and vision for the world is fair, inclusive and collaborative at its core.

I have high hopes and high expectations for a bright prosperous future for Aotearoa and it is my place on earth to contribute by working the soil for our young people to plant and grow the seeds for the future they want to see.

What is the best piece of advice you’ve ever received?

‘Talk less, listen more’
When you are passionate about something and know how to make it happen, you tend to do a lot of talking to  educate, convince, and demonstrate. In my previous venture, and now with Stand Tall, I value that everyone has unique experiences, skills, and talents that I can learn from. I am working consciously to keep increasing my ability to listen, and work hard to catch myself when I default back to ‘talk - teacher mode’.

Knowing what you know now, what is one thing you would do differently if you were to start again?

There are many many situations that did not turn out the way I originally imagined; good and not so good. We all tend to dwell on the things we could do better, so one thing I would definitely do differently is not spend as much time dwelling on the negative and rather take the learnings and apply them for good into the future.  

To accept that you are part of something bigger than yourself, to have empathy for all involved in any given situation is an ongoing process for me. I wish I had been intentionally guided in this opportunity for self-discovery and self-reflection earlier in my life and I suppose this forms a part of what drives me to walk alongside young people now.

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