Partnering with business owners to spark clarity and progress.
Paula Bearsley:
BBS (Honours) Finance & Management
Business Growth Coach
I'm a hands-on financial and business growth coach with 20+ years of experience working in and on small businesses. I help small business owners get clear on their direction and grow with confidence. I focus on practical, no-nonsense advice—whether it’s through coaching, mentoring, or diving deep into the numbers and the business to uncover real opportunities.
I’m all about making things work better—streamlining processes, sharpening strategies, and turning financial challenges into growth opportunities. I've helped businesses bounce back from very tough spots, including helping to rebuild the family business after Cyclone Gabrielle in February 2023 - an experience that built profound resilience, required solid and calm strategic planning and thinking, and demanded crisis management capabilities on a huge scale. It also made me acutely aware of my values and what is most important to me - above all else, people matter…and their quality of life matters. If I can use my skills and experience to improve someone else’s life, then that’s a win for me.
What sets me apart? I combine personal experience with solid financial know-how, big-picture thinking, and a genuine passion for helping people succeed. I have experienced absolute rock bottom and rebuilt. I have created a business from an idea and succeeded. I have worked in and on small businesses and I understand first-hand the demands and pressure they bring. I understand the nuances of a family run business and how that can either hinder or propel growth.
I am easy to work with, I love a challenge and solving problems, and I always aim to build strong, supportive relationships with the people I work with.
Whether you are facing challenges or looking to take things to the next level, I am here to help make the path forward clearer - and easier.
TAKE THE FIRST STEP AND THE NEXT WE CAN DO TOGETHER.
Prime Minister, Christopher Luxon and myself - discussing the impact of Cyclone Gabrielle on our business and the way forward.
My Background
I'm a Massey University graduate with a Bachelor of Business Studies (First Class Honours) in Finance and Management. My early career included roles at UDC Finance as an Analyst and at The New Zealand Treasury, advising the Minister of Finance and Prime Minister in the Budget Strategy Team and Health Team. I later focused on healthcare capital investment, which led to a role as an Investment Analyst at Mayne Health in Melbourne.
In 2003 I returned to New Zealand and spent the next 20 years operating a small tradie business — a typical husband and wife setup, where the husband does the practical work and the wife runs the office. In 2020 I embarked on my own Sole Operator journey and built a small business from scratch on the side to fulfil my mountain biking passion. I had to wear every hat possible to get it off the ground and make it a success…the visionary creating programs, the CEO setting the direction of the company, the finance person, the sales and marketing person, the administration person, the IT guru, HR manager and of course, the actual coach out on the bike delivering the service to clients. I am fully aware of the self motivation and sacrifice it takes to operate a small business, and I also know how incredibly rewarding having the ability to create and determine your own future is.
I am a Director on the Board of Bearsley Group, and have been actively involved in our family business for over 15 years. The company operates across agriculture, viticulture, fruit production and the export of fresh produce mainly to Fiji, parts of Asia, Japan and Korea, employing up to 60 staff in the peak season.
In 2023, Cyclone Gabrielle devastated our Bearsley Group operations (losing $25 million overnight) and instantly erased 90% of our income. I became immersed in our family business to rebuild it from disaster. This crisis led to rapid pivots, including establishing Bearsley Contracting to work for the Hawkes Bay Regional Council (HBRC) to clean up affected properties and the creation of a silt ‘dump’ to provide a solution for the disposal of excess silt in the region. We were forced to re-evaluate our remaining assets and explore how we could repurpose them to provide a sustainable business going forward. We embarked on a massive project to repurpose the farmland and establish a limestone and metal quarry to support regional roading infrastructure and the rebuild of major stop banks. In the aftermath of the cyclone, not only did I work on restoration of the family business but I also took on key regional recovery roles - one as a Recovery Manager for a major contractor in the clean-up and another as Project Co-ordinator for the HBRC.
The cyclone made me acutely aware of the vulnerablily of small businesses — especially when facing unexpected shocks without a solid plan or support system.
Now, as a Business Growth Coach, I work alongside small business owners helping them navigate uncertainty, gain clarity, explore opportunities, and build sustainable growth with confidence. I have personally walked the long hard road. I bring first-hand experience of complete devastation and the ‘know how’ of how to come back from ground zero and make your business thrive again. I bring a fresh perspective to your business. I will challenge your assumptions and your current way of thinking, and yes at times it will be uncomfortable. But I will walk alongside you and fully support you on the journey toward financial freedom, lifestyle flexibility and an improved quality of life, all round.
10 hectare kiwifruit block absolutely decimated by Cyclone Gabrielle
How I Relax
My Passion: Mountain Biking
I stumbled across the sport of mountain biking in 2014 while teaching my son to ride at Craters Mountain Bike Park in Taupo. I promptly got roped into helping with a Junior Development Squad of 12-15 year old kids and I ended up hooked and began racing competitively. I competed in the World Masters MTB Event and won the 2017 World Masters Cross Country Championship.
To succeed in this sport requires dedication, sacrifice, overcoming challenges, mental toughness, measured suffering and a huge chunk of self-belief. Many of these attributes transfer well to the business arena.
In 2020 I created my own small business called Bike Craft (a mountain biking coaching service) as a side passion, to offer young and old the opportunity to try the sport that I love in a safe and supportive environment.
Coaching people requires another set of skills. You need to be able to ‘read’ people, find what motivates them, establish their trust in you quickly and build their confidence through you. These are all highly transferable skills that I use daily in the business world.
