Ayna Amima was just 19 when her father convinced her to forget about her fledgling nursing career….

And to instead change tack completely – and join him in starting a trucking company.
Initially, she says, "I thought I wouldn't say yes." It was, after all, an industry she knew absolutely nothing about.

The closest she'd come to anything vaguely related to road transport was back in the Shamim's former homeland, in Fiji – where her Dad, Mohammed, had run a taxi company. And the young Ayna sometimes "used to take calls from customers."

Still, as she reasons now: "I guess he thought I had the personality to communicate with people."

Regardless of her qualifications seeming to be a world away from helping run a truck company in Auckland, she reckons: "I only took one night to change my mind!" 

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