PRESENTED TO ... Alexia Hilbertidou (24)

24 year old former Albany Senior High student Alexia Hilbertidou receives the North Harbour Club AIMES Innovation Award for 2023.

Alexia has previously received an AIMES Emerging Talent Award in 2016 and an AIMES Service to the Community Award in 2017.

Described by the NZ Herald as the 'Headmistress of Gen Z', Alexia is the founder of GirlBoss NZ - NZ's largest organisation for young women. In 8 years, GirlBoss has grown to 13,500 members and programmes have been implemented in more than 100 schools across NZ, Australia and the Cook Islands.

Alexia’s own mission is to get women to the table – the boardroom table that is, and she believes the decisions made while young are crucial in paving the way.

She has spoken at some of the world's largest conferences, such as The United Nations Commission on the Status of Women and One Young World, sharing stages with speakers such as Richard Branson, Meghan Markle, and JK Rowling.

Other achievements include becoming NZ's Gender Equality Ambassador at the World Expo, a National Geographic Explorer, and a Facebook Leadership Fellow. Alexia studied Leadership for Change at the University of Cambridge and holds a Masters in Emerging Technologies.

Alexia has received over 30 Awards for her work, including being named the Prime Minister’s Pacific Youth Award Winner, Semi-Finalist for Young New Zealander of the Year, the Most Influential NZ Woman under 25 at the Westpac Women of Influence Awards, Commonwealth Covid-19 Hero, Pacific Young Entrepreneur of the Year 2022, Forbes 30 under 30, and Finalist for World Young Entrepreneur of the Year.

Alexia was also awarded a Queen's Young Leader Award for Services to the Commonwealth by Her Majesty, The Queen, at Buckingham Palace. She was selected from over 20,000 nominations and is the youngest Commonwealth Citizen to hold this honour.

Alexia plans to use grant funds from this AIMES Innovation Award to assist an additional 120 youth to complete her GirlBoss Edge 10 day programme. A digital programme created during the Covid-19 pandemic where over 1600 students received mentoring from 800 corporate mentors, working together to develop their career competencies and complete a CV-worthy challenge.

The Orewa resident is certainly an exceptional young North Harbour entrepreneur.