The pioneering businesswoman inspiring future generations

Kaupapa Māori Business Charity and Community

When Ashleigh Nairn began working at BurgerFuel Fairy Springs as a 15-year-old she never thought she would still be there 10 years later.

While her workplace remains the same today, her job title is a bit different now – she not only owns the business, she became the youngest Burger Fuel franchisee when she took it over in 2019 at 21.

“I never envisioned being a business owner when I first started working here. My parents kind of encouraged me to get into the workforce super young. They thought it would be good for my work ethic and good to pave the way forward.

“I always thought that I would go off to university and become a lawyer or maybe a police officer or something but BurgerFuel just paved the way and changed that whole mindset of where I wanted to be and where I wanted to end up,” Ashleigh said.

“My biggest driver to become a franchisee was the opportunity I got given in 2017. I was 18 years old and I was invited over to America to be part of the Burger Fuel training team over there so I trained up in customer service for two months and that was kind of when I decided ‘yip, this is what I want to do’.

She started her BurgerFuel journey while attending Rotorua Girls’ High School, going into it with a mindset that it was “just a little part time gig to make a bit of money on the side”.

However, that changed as soon as she started.

“With BurgerFuel I’ve kind of never considered it just a job, it's always been a lifestyle to me . . . a huge chunk of my life has been spent at Burger Fuel, I met my husband here and yeah I owe a lot of everything that i've accomplished to Burger Fuel.

Ten years on and she still loves what she does.

“I’m super grateful for my previous boss Frances Porter and Ryan Petch for giving me the opportunities that they did because without them I definitely wouldn’t be where I am today. Not a lot of people would have taken the leap of faith and hired me at 15 with zero experience.

“They moved me into shift management at 16, moved me up into store management at 18 and then that's when I then got invited to be part of that international training group.”

Now as an employer herself, she likes to give her young employees opportunities to thrive in work and in life.

“I learnt so many great life skills here working at Burger Fuel and I want to give them that same opportunity,” she said.

“One of my drivers is that you know giving kids especially the same opportunities I was given at that age.

“One of my big things as an employer is that I don’t just train them in store. I help them with other aspects as well. I’m always pushing them to attend driver courses, get their driver licences. We have little reward and recognition programmes in store where they get prizes for getting their learners, restricted and their full licence . . . there's a few things that we do outside of the general four wall workplace stuff to try and help support our staff to grow,” she said.

This mindset has helped Ashleigh achieve many successes in her business.

Ashleigh took ownership of BurgerFuel Fairy Springs just a few months before Covid struck, which resulted in a tough few years. However, 2023 was her biggest year to date, which she puts down to changing her mindset from caring about other people’s opinions on how a business should be run to instead focusing on her staff.

“The first few years in business, it was kind of just survive, survive, survive. But last year was the year that I kind of decided to focus on my people. So, I focused on my staff, focused on our people, you know, creating a good team culture . . . cultivating a safe and happy work environment that encouraged and empowered growth.”

These changes resulted in massive recognition in the Rotorua The Tompkins Wake Rotorua Business Chamber 2023 Rotorua Business Awards and Burger Fuel’s national awards.

“We walked away with our Employer of the Year award. We were also nominated for two other awards. We were finalists in the hospitality category and the emerging business leader category, and at our BurgerFuel national awards, the Purple Carpet awards, we were recognised for number one People in Culture, number one Health and Safety and we also got Store of the Year, which was absolutely amazing.

“The team that I have behind me at the moment is amazing, without them I wouldn't be able to achieve anything that we do achieve as a store.

“A huge part of it as well is realising that you know i'm not just raising little burger fuelers, little fry cooks . . . we’re raising the next generation of franchisees.”

After such a successful year in business, Ashleigh still has goals she wants to achieve.

“The main focus is still encouraging my people to grow. We've got a store manager in training at the moment, which we've never had before. A lot of what me and him are working on this year is like local store marketing, but in a different aspect … community engagement and getting out there in the community more.

“We both participated in the recent Kick for a Cause, which was amazing.”

Ashleigh has achieved so much at such a young age and she’d love to inspire women in business.

“It's hugely important for me to make sure that I am using my story and using my platforms to hopefully inspire the next generation, you know especially being young, being female, being Maori. I know how important that platform is, and hopefully if I can even convince one little Māori girl that she can do it, I'm winning.”