It’s totally possible to run a successful business without compromising your personal life and values.
WE Accounting was born ten years ago, when a husband with extensive accounting and auditing experience and a wife with a banking and finance background decided to combine their talents and set up their own business.
While Wyndi and Eli Tagi started out just ‘doing people’s books’ a decade later they are also coaching small businesses, providing accounting and virtual CFO services, sitting on multiple Governance boards, rolling out financial literacy packages to communities in need and doing everything they can towards their higher purpose – to improve the statistics of Māori and Pacifica people.
They have recently set up a second branch of WE in Samoa, dedicated to outsourcing work for accountants in New Zealand.
Recipients of the prestigious NZ Advisory Partner of the Year 2020 at the Xero awards, WE has a strong belief in understanding people’s entire lives before trying to help them grow their business. They strive to understand people’s ‘why’ so they can help them increase their profit without it taking a toll on the other personal values they hold dear. Maori beliefs of manaakitanga and hauora run through everything they do and they are living proof (with five sons, a granddaughter and a workforce operating from home half the week) that you can run a business and still be a fully-participating member of your aiga or whanau.
WE Accounting has been a catalyst for change within the accounting industry
Not only by providing a different type of service to clients, but by being leaders in diversity and acting as role models for young people in their communities. Having no role models themselves when they started out, they want to encourage other Maori and Pasifika businesses to thrive and be proud of who they are and where they come from.
Wyndi currently sits on the board for Manukau Institute of Technology Rūnanga, Aotearoa Sports Foundation Trust and The Australia New Zealand Leadership Forum (ANZLF) Indigenous Women’s Business Network.