Whangarei Business Womens' Network - October 2025 Event

Megatrends, Automation & AI Where do I start for my business?

This month we're delighted to welcome the Digital Operations Technology Manager from Fonterra, Saskia van Bergenhenegouwen to share examples of using AI in BIG biz and how we can translate from large scale to smaller scale to do our biz better.

From Whangarei, Saskia is Mum to her two sons, loves travelling, and gets a buzz from heat-spot learning through her work (that is finding herself out of her comfort zone and quickly navigating a path forward). Yip - it’s certainly uncomfortable, and, within a safe environment, it can be a blast. A Graphic Designer by trade she's invested 16 years of her career at Fonterra, specialising in inventory and procurement. She pivoted 18 months to where she's now leading a team who seek opportunities in the business to manufacture well by automating processes and introducing new technologies to manufacturing. So far, she's consolidated processes across $100 million of inventory, over 27 sites and 70 team members by building apps, robotic processes and generating a consistent data capture and analysis process to make it easy for team members to get actionable, timely insights. Strategy and people are her buzz, and she's deeply passionate about technology, making life easy through simplification (especially getting great outcomes really fast) as well as using automation and AI to help ensure Fonterra stays strong for future generations.

Before we leap into AI in our businesses (regardless of our size), the questions to ask ourselves are; "Do I understand enough to know my marketable value? My deliverables? My business Purpose? What's preventing us from delivering well?" From this information we can start to think about developing an AI or automation strategy to meet the need we have.

This month Saskia will share with us lessons from one of NZ's largest manufacturers, and how we can use those learnings in our own business settings. Join us to hear Saskia share her knowledge and experience on: • Megatrends - what's current? • Megatrend of Authenticity and Trust - the key factor in any business and how AI and automation can help you create it • Different types of automation • Examples of large-scale AI and how that could translate to small-scale applications. And, she'll be sharing with us a template we can use to help us get started with automation. You'll certainly want to register early for this exciting evening.