• Jason Bae
  • Bowen Pan
  • Sudhvir Singh
  • Hala Nasr
  • Stephan Grabowski
  • Sam Lucas
  • Jenny Chu
  • Priyanka Shekar

Shore Talents Make '40 Under 40'

Talented former students of Shore schools feature strongly in an annual list of the country's top '40 Under 40' graduates. 

Young professionals across a diverse range of fields have been singled out for their innovation and excellence in The University of Auckland's coveted list of high-flyng graduates. This year, Westlake Boys and Westlake Girls High Schools, Takapuna Grammar and Rangitoto past pupils make the top spots representing thew Shore.  

Given the University graduates some 10,000 students each year making the list is a significant achievement. Here's the rundown on those from the Shore who made it and why...

Westlake Girls alumni on the 2018 list include:

From Westlake Girls High School, Priyanka Shekar went on to study Electrical and Electronics Engineering. She is behind two start-up ventures in Silicon Valley: Californian-based Grüv Music, an intuitive learning app, and Real Industry, a non-profit that educates, inspires, and empowers university students to thrive in the arts and technology.

Hala Nasr, fellow Westlake Girl alumni, is a passionate advocate against gendered discrimination and violence. Hala has helped the New Zealand Defence Force to develop responses and policies to deal with sexual harassment, and is completing a PhD with the University of Melbourne exploring the global challenge of Sexual and Gender-Based Violence (SGBV) against refugees.

The third Westlake Girl to make the list is Jenny Chu, who received a full scholarship to study law and engineering at the University of Auckland. She is now contributing to a key piece of Auckland’s future as the Senior Civil Project Engineer on the underground City Rail Link project, the largest transport infrastructure project ever to be undertaken in New Zealand.

Westlake Boy past-pupil Bowen Pan landed his dream job at age 26 as a Product Manager at Facebook, specialising in building products from “zero to one”. Bowen was named Dux in his final year at Westlake Boys in sixth form, before going on to study Engineering & Property at the University of Auckland, and an MBA at Stanford University.

Concert pianist Jason Bae, who debuted with the Auckland Symphony Orchestra at the age of just 12, and is New Zealand's only official Steinway Artist, and is another former Westlaker. “I had a great English teacher at Westlake, Alex Reed, and I have to thank him for developing my proficiency in English which allowed me to gain direct entry to university at the end of Year 12, ironically because of my marks in English rather than maths,” says Jason, who emigrated from South Korea at age 10. 

Fellow Westlake Boys alumni Sam Lucas is a social entrepreneur and founder of Onja, which teaches young people with potential in Madagascar how to code, then later earn a life-changing salary at Onja’s sustainable outsourcing enterprise.

Sudhvir Singh, Policy Director EAT, was recognised on the 40 Under 40 list for his work with EAT - a non-profit organisation based in Norway, which aims to disrupt the world's food production systems to be more equitable, sustainable and to provide better access to nutrition.

Sudhvir was named the most distinguished graduate in his final year of medicine (with a GPA of 9 or A+) yet opted to work outside of healthcare, instead addressing the underlying drivers of ill-health in society. Previously he was the Auckland Director of Generation Zero, and was named a New Zealander of the Year finalist in 2013 for his role in promoting solutions to climate change through transport, energy and liveable cities. Sudhvir is a former pupil of Takapuna Grammar School. 

“My plan is to keep learning from what has been achieved in the Scandinavian countries to then test and develop solutions in New Zealand and around the world,” he says.

“I do want to return to New Zealand in due course. In fact, I feel like I have an obligation to return! There are so many areas where I feel I could contribute to helping develop more effective policy at a Government level.”

Also on the list from the Shore is Bachelor of Commerce graduate Stephan Grabowski, past pupil of Rangitoto College. Stephan has lived in Africa since he graduated in 2005 and landed a graduate role with international shipping company Maersk. He is now the COO of Koko Networks - a disruptive entrant to the cooking fuels market which has the goal of supplying safe, easily-available clean ethanol cooking fuel to households in Africa via an innovative new technology-based distribution network.
Stephan says: “Around half a million people die each year across Africa as a result of using dirty cooking fuels like charcoal or kerosene. We feel KOKO can really help to solve this problem while also lowering cooking costs for consumers who don’t have a lot of money to spare.”

The annual 40 Under 40 list recognises alumni making a significant contribution to their field and community drawn from the categories of business leaders, influencers, performers, entrepreneurs, humanitarians, and disruptors and innovators.