Introducing Jacqui Gage-Brown: Business strategy and coaching with a growth-driven focus

The journey to Two Tides

At the heart of Jacqui’s current role as a Business Growth Consultant at Two Tides Consulting lies her commitment to elevating business owners and their businesses. Jacqui works collaboratively with leadership teams to transform strategy to implementation, enabling the achievement of growth goals.

Studying management and public relations, her expertise in business management, strategic planning, and marketing strategy is not just theoretical, it’s grounded in real-world application and results.

Entrepreneurial spirit and market acumen

Jacqui’s career is marked by a series of successful entrepreneurial ventures, each demonstrating her keen ability to see potential and address market needs. Co-founding HGB Strategic Marketing, Jacqui and her co-director set out with a mission to challenge and transform the marketing landscape. The business was recognised for its fast growth and won the Westpac Waikato Business Small Business Award in 2015. This growth continued, in financial return and team size, over the next 10 years.

Jacqui saw the opportunity to allow for succession from within the business, and successfully exited in the businesses 11th year. Reflecting on the HGB journey, Jacqui loved working alongside business owners and leadership teams, understanding their goals, and determining how best to bring their message to market. HGB continue to be a valued partner of Two Tides today.

Her entrepreneurial spirit saw her again in start-up mode when approached with a business idea for breastfeeding clothing. The business designed product in New Zealand, secured offshore production, built an ecommerce platform, established relationships with retailers throughout New Zealand, and in the process created a strong brand name in the breastfeeding market. A successful and rewarding project, that again saw Jacqui exit once established.

Jacqui’s innovative spirit and solution-focused approach exemplifies her capability to turn ideas into successful business realities. She has walked the walk, and understands the challenges, commitment, and choices that business owners are faced with.

Impactful leadership

In the community, Jacqui is an active leader. In Tairua, the community had been fighting a 30-year battle to have a skatepark built. Jacqui brought her multifaceted skill to the table to see this project come to fruition, raising community funds of $150,000 from the community in three months through a new charitable entity – a testament to her ability to engage at a community level through well-constructed public relations, and strategic marketing.

Presenting live on breakfast TV, radio, and working with press to show the skulduggery the town was facing, Jacqui demonstrated her lobbying ability with local Government and supported the community in their bid to achieve the skatepark.

A committee member for Tairua Surf Lifesaving, Jacqui was instrumental in establishing a partnership with solarZero to power the surf club. Having Cyclone Gabrielle tear through Tairua and with firsthand experience of the benefit solar provided to her family, Jacqui reached out to solarZero to see how this resource could benefit the surf club.

Jacqui has been part of the Sport Waikato board throughout its transformational journey, which saw the organisation overhaul resources and service offering, and bringing the focus to influencing decision making in the region.

On the personal side

At home in Tairua, Jacqui is a mum to three boys, and wife to Bennet. Together they own Alted Engineering. A CrossFit ‘addict’ you’ll find Jacqui hitting the gym every morning or out surfing or running. She is a certified surf lifeguard, Level 1 CrossFit coach, and a regular instructor at the local Tairua gym. Her love for travel and adventure with her family adds another dimension to her dynamic personality – just ask her about their three-month Mexico adventure in 2022.

As she says, her journey is only just beginning. In a world where business challenges are ever-evolving, Jacqui is a beacon of inspiration, showing what’s possible with a growth-driven focus and a strategic mindset.