Sarah Greaney
Sarah is a business owner, community leader, NLP (neurolinguistic programming) coach practitioner and much more. Her career, whilst varied, has always centred around people and her desire to make a positive difference to the lives of others.
She was born in the UK and after completing her degree she moved to Germany where her first job involved organising holiday packages for British army families.
On her return to the UK, she secured a graduate position with the Halifax Building Society, and worked in the branch network and Head Office Training department for a number of years. Emigrating in 1997, she continued her banking career with Sovereign Financial Services and then New Zealand Home Loans. She moved into contract work in 2000 and then spent time delivering customer service, leadership and culture change management workshops for a variety of corporations including Telecom, Air New Zealand, NAB and Vodafone.
After a stint in organisational development role with Inland Revenue, she found herself calling Te Anau home. Whilst working for Westpac, she was also elected to the Te Anau Community Board where she has served 3 terms. In 2018 she became Chair and was instrumental in developing the Board’s Community Futures Plan.
In 2017 Sarah and her husband John established High Leys Lodge, a boutique bed and breakfast accommodation and successfully ran this until Covid hit in 2020. With the lodge guests temporarily gone, community leadership became the focus, and Sarah worked with the consultants on the Milford Opportunities project providing input to the reference group discussions.
In 2020, Sarah also trained as a Hypnotherapist and NLP Coach/Trainer (neuro-linguistic programming), and now also works in this space. By November 2020 the family businesses, Kiwi Country and Westland Greenstone needed her input. Contributing her skills in people and operational leadership, systems, communication and strategy she and John have completely overhauled every aspect of the operations to make everything leaner and more efficient.
She is now also on the Advisory Panel of the Southland Murihiku Destination Strategy and a member of the Strong Communities Murihiku group – both part of the Beyond 2025 Southland project.