Holly Singh

Holly Singh, a former New Zealand track cyclist who won a gold medal at the U19 world champs in 2015, says she thrives on a challenge.

“I’m a big believer that when you’re outside your comfort zone, that’s where the real growth happens,” she says.

A qualified engineer and project manager at Octa with five years' experience, Holly is used to managing multi-million-dollar construction and engineering projects.

Now she is excited to be embarking on a new challenge, having started her Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree at the University of Waikato in March 2024 to deepen her understanding of the global business environment.

“I’ve always wanted the kind of career where I can positively impact my community and realise my full leadership potential,” says Holly. “I want to be remembered as someone who brought the right people together and created an environment where positive change can happen.”

Holly was recently named as a recipient of the Waikato Management School Emerging Leaders Award.

Many of the soft skills she has learnt about leadership came from her experience of competing in elite sport at an international level, she says, while also studying for her engineering degree at the University of Waikato as a Sir Edmund Hillary Scholar.

“I’ve found there are some really strong parallels between high-performance sport and a high-performance business environment, in terms of setting goals and consistently working towards them.”

As well as being an active member of the Waikato Chamber of Commerce and the Project Management Institute of New Zealand, Holly is a volunteer mentor to university students taking part in the STEM Futures Accelerator programme.

She also leads the Octa Women’s Network (OWN) at work, which advises Octa’s board of directors on how it can better support female project managers to thrive within a very male-dominated industry.

“I know that mentors have had a really positive impact on my career, so it gives me a lot of satisfaction to be able to give back to other people who are just as enthusiastic about the industry as I am.”

Holly is really enjoying her experience of the Waikato MBA so far, and she says it’s already given her a fresh perspective on how she approaches problems at work.

“I really like the Saturday all-day sessions, because you get to sit around a table with other like-minded people and collaborate with them. The key difference is that everyone really wants to be there and is fully invested and engaged, so it’s like we’re all on a journey together.”

“What’s so great is that you can take the content you’re learning in class and apply it to real-life scenarios in your job straight away, which helps to cement the knowledge and theory gained.”