Anastasia headed to university straight from school to study accounting because she’d done well at it throughout secondary school and she liked playing with numbers. She then spent four years at the University of Waikato qualifying with a Bachelor of Management Studies with Honors, majoring in accounting in 1992. After the first year, Anastasia received a cadetship with the New Plymouth District Council to help fund her education, provide a holiday job each vacation and a position on completion of her degree.
After graduation, she returned to her home town of New Plymouth to work for the Council in a variety of roles. Her most senior position was the Financial Controller of one of the Councils trading enterprises. It was during these years that Anastasia completed her qualification to become a Chartered Accountant in 1994, a qualification she held until 2007.
In 1996 the travel bug got the better of her and she headed off for the big OE to London. Once there Anastasia landed a job with a publishing company and worked for them on and off over the next two years in various project and management accounting roles. This work was interspersed with travel around the UK, Europe, Scandinavia and eventually Africa on her way back home to New Zealand in 1998.
Anastasia moved to Auckland once back in Aotearoa and started her now 10+ year career in consulting with her first role in a boutique company specialising in local government. Her work first focused on financial analysis but soon Anastasia began to broaden her skills into wider organisational development initiatives. She was then asked by the owners of the company to head up their Sydney operation which she did for three years before returning to NZ in 2003.
In 2004, while still continuing to work as a Senior Consultant, Anastasia fulfilled a long held desire to complete a Diploma in Counselling which she had mastered four years later. To bring together her business experience and her counseling learnings in an organisational context, Anastasia took up a position with one of the largest global HR and OD consultancies. She worked as a Senior Consultant there until early in 2009 when she left to join Infinite Possibilities and make a lifestyle change to move to the Waikato.
To date, Anastasia has considerable experience in the analysis of organisation structure, roles, processes and systems to optimise performance within local government and the commercial sector. Her specialty now is working with organisations to develop and implement initiatives focused on their people. She has a demonstrated track record in designing and delivering projects with appropriate stakeholder management, consultation, employee leadership, facilitation and communication interventions to ensure initiatives are positioned and executed to promote successful outcomes. Anastasia has a keen interest in how to manage change while maintaining productivity and engagement.
When not working Anastasia enjoys being with her husband Brydon, socialising with family and friends, dancing, pilates, walking, reading, mosaic, music, movies and travelling.