Advisor in the Office of the Mayor of Wellington
You can find Chamanthie on Twitter and Instagram.
Who or what did you want to be when you grew up?
I grew up in Beijing in the 1990s. The kids around me were from all over the world, and we could be loosely divided into diplo-brats, military-brats, and ex-brats depending on what our parents did for a living. Basically it meant we were surrounded by non-traditional role models when it came to jobs (some of my friends’ parent were rumored to be actual spies!). At age 6, when grownups would ask me what I wanted to be when I grew up, to everyone’s amusement, I would reply, ‘a venture capitalist!’ I had no idea what it actually meant, but I’d picked it up listening to adults. Turns out 6-year old me was more precocious than prodigious because I still (happily) have no plans to become a VC.
What is your professional background?
I went to school in central Auckland, but enrolled at Waikato University because I wanted to experience being away from home (but also be close enough to come home for the weekends). When I arrived at Waikato, I was a sheltered Aucklander determined to get my law degree and hurry back to the big city to become a corporate lawyer, but Waikato surprised me. In the process of graduating with my conjoint degree in Law, Politics and Public Relations, I also discovered Hamilton to be a fascinating city that actually reminded me a lot of Beijing in the 90s –coming out of a dark age and abuzz with potential.
By the time I was done with my studies, being a corporate lawyer seemed dull compared to the challenge of going into bat for the city with the worst reputation in the country. I spent a number of amazing years working for the then-Mayor of Hamilton and discovered I was intensely passionate about working on cities and their challenges.
A few years later I moved into the private sector because people kept telling me that’s what I needed to do to become a real grownup. I found myself working for a Kiwi-American creative/tech company, where I cut my teeth on app development, digital marketing and PR in the education, health and consumer sectors and got to work with some of the biggest brands in the world.
Then, when the opportunity came up to run a Mayoral campaign for an unlikely candidate, I jumped at the chance. We didn’t win, but it was exhilarating and I rediscovered my love of tackling city issues. A few months later, I was offered what would become my dream job: working for the Mayor of the Coolest Little Capital in the world, and I packed my bags and moved to Wellington without a second thought.
When do you feel the most creative or inspired?
When I’m procrastinating! My best ideas seem to strike when I am supposed to be doing responsible things like vacuuming the apartment or doing the guest list for my wedding.
When are you happiest?
These days I’m happiest when my partner (who lives in Auckland) is in Wellington, it’s a Sunday morning and we’re at Ekor, our favourite bookshop café, having breakfast, reading the paper and there are cute dogs walking about looking for pats.
What's the best stress relief advice you've ever been given?
Learn to breathe. I took up yoga for the first time at age 28 during an intensely stressful time and discovered I had been breathing incorrectly my whole life. Learning to breathe properly has been magic for my stress levels!
What is your most treasured possession?
I’m not really a ‘things’ kind of a person, but I am eternally grateful for my New Zealand passport, which is the truest evidence that I belong in this country (even if there are still a few people who think I might not look or sound like a real New Zealander!). As proud as I am of my Sri Lankan heritage, I feel privileged to be a Kiwi. I was a teenager when my family and I received citizenship, so I remember clearly a time before I was a New Zealander and how that felt. When you leave your country of birth at age one due to escalating war, and then spend your childhood in a communist state where –despite a happy life –you will never be allowed to officially belong, that tiny booklet with ‘NEW ZEALAND’ embossed on the front is life-changing.
What is the most important thing life has taught you thus far?
That you are never too old to make new friends.
What is your number on business tip for surviving (and thriving) in your industry?
Get on Twitter! My uncurated Twitter feed continually exposes me to new ideas, fascinating people and interesting opportunities –which coincidentally are the three things that my industry lives on. Some of my best ideas, friends and work-related contacts have arisen simply from being on Twitter.
What is your big project or goal for 2018?
2018 is going to be a big year. Working on the Mayor’s vision for Wellington as New Zealand’s Capital of Culture will be a big focus of my work and I’m excited about what we plan to achieve for the city.
At the same time, I’m excited for my outside-of-work passion projects. I’ll be working with a network of women around the world who are passionate about cities and connecting women who work in the cities space to each other (watch this space!). I’m also thrilled to be living out a secret dream of being a freelance writer for a couple of magazines, including New Zealand Weddings magazine, where I currently have a regular column writing about the sometimes painful, sometimes confusing, hilarity of planning my Kiwi-Sri Lankan wedding. And, of course, organising the actual wedding will feature quite heavily as a project in the first half of the year.
Who or what is inspiring you at the moment?
I just finished Alyssa Mastromonaco’s book, which recounts her journey of starting off on various Democrat campaigns and working her way up to being Barack Obama’s Deputy Chief of Staff at a ridiculously young age, while maintaining her sense of humour and grip on reality. Her reflections on her failures and challenges are refreshingly normal and relatable, despite the extraordinary context of her life.
What do you continually ask yourself?
"Are there sandwich crumbs on my face?"
Who do you collaborate with best?
I can’t really narrow it down to one type of person. I find I often enter into collaborative projects with total strangers and come out the other side as friends for life. They tend to be intense experiences and I’ve found learning to be a good collaborator is an ongoing process and you get better at it with each attempt.
Who has challenged you to be better than you once were?
Sometimes it takes years before you realise a person has had a profound impact on the way you see the world. One of my law lecturers at Waikato –Matiu Dickson, who sadly passed away last year –insisted on teaching a large portion of his classes using te reo terminology because he believed that the best way to understand a culture was to understand its language. The vast majority of the class, made up of non-te reo speakers, had to keep a running list of terms and a corresponding glossary, which we then had to commit to memory. At the time, many of us found the process frustrating and resented the extra work but today I am grateful for those foundations because so much of the work we do in the public sector is about navigating the challenges of biculturalism through mutual understanding.
How does courage manifest in your work?
I’m sure many women can relate to this: in the course of my work I am often the youngest person or the youngest woman or the only woman in the room. The perceived power imbalance in these situations can make it feel like an act of bravery to simply speak up even in the most non-threatening of circumstances. I have to continually remind myself I am in the room to provide value.
When has mentorship played a role in your life?
I am lucky to have had excellent mentors. My first Chief of Staff, Bella Perrone, is the kind of mentor I hope to be one day. She was my first real boss and had the ability to make you feel like the work you were doing really mattered, which made you want to push yourself to do better. She had high expectations but was also incredibly supportive and continues to be a mentor long after I stopped working for her.