About Aoraki
An Auckland-based advisory practice focused on strategic planning for small and medium-sized businesses across New Zealand.
Why we exist
Small and medium-sized businesses carry most of New Zealand’s employment, yet many planning cycles still borrow language from listed-company playbooks. Aoraki Strategy Advisory was founded to give owners a quieter, more practical room: one where trade-offs are spoken aloud, capacity is treated as a constraint, and the output is a plan people can open on a Monday morning.
The name nods to Aoraki / Mount Cook — a reminder that useful strategy is about choosing a route, not claiming every peak at once.
How we work with clients
We facilitate; we do not take over the business. Owners stay the decision-makers. Our role is to structure the conversation, challenge soft assumptions, write what was agreed, and leave a rhythm for the first ninety days. When a question needs a lawyer, accountant, or industry specialist, we say so and step aside.
People
Elena Fraser — Principal Advisor
Elena has spent fifteen years advising New Zealand SMEs through growth, succession conversations, and market focus decisions. She previously led planning projects inside a mid-sized professional services group before moving into independent advisory. She facilitates most engagements and remains the client’s primary contact.
Tomasa Rangi — Engagement Associate
Tomasa prepares interview guides, synthesises workshop notes, and keeps action boards honest after handover. Her background is in operations coordination for a regional hospitality group — useful when plans meet roster reality.
Values we actually use in the room
- Plain language — if a sentence needs a glossary, we rewrite it.
- Named owners — priorities without owners are wishes.
- Respect for capacity — adding work without removing work is not a plan.
- Local context — freight, labour markets, and regional demand shape NZ SMEs differently than generic templates admit.
Community
We work from Auckland and travel when the engagement needs people in the same room. A portion of pro-bono hours each year goes to community enterprises referred by existing clients — capacity is limited, and we say no when we cannot do the work properly.