Nonyo Lees

Nonyo came to NZ for a Christmas holiday and fell in love with the place - and so decided to move here for good.  Nonyo was born in Thailand but lived in England for 17 years before locating herself in New Zealand.

Nonyo is another of Zeald.com’s international identities, being born in Thailand but living in dear old Mother England for 17 years, from the age of five. There was a brief interlude in Spain for six months but as Nonyo says ‘Spain is not a place to live but great for a holiday’. So Nonyo then moved back to England and lived in the Hampshire/Surrey area.

Nonyo’s college education initially concentrated on travel and tourism but after a year she decided that was not something she wanted to pursue. Nonyo decided to change courses and take business studies for two years. During that studying time, she worked part time at a car rental company called Holiday Autos. Nonyo found it was a good company to work and felt there was good potential to be transferred around the various branches so she decided to stay there after she finished college.

Nonyo started off working in the Call Centre, and then moved to a department dealing with wholesale travel agents making specialised car rental bookings. From there, she moved into the website administration department, dealing with website enquiries for car rentals.

Then Nonyo’s parents decided to move to New Zealand when she was 20. At the time Nonyo was enjoying her job and life in England so she decided to stay on to enjoy the social lifestyle and the fast-paced living. After two years of this hectic lifestyle, Nonyo decided to make the big journey to visit her parents in NZ.  She says the decision might have been because her liver was crying out and saying “no more alcohol please”.

Nonyo came to NZ for a Christmas holiday and loved the place. So the following year she decided to move here. Nonyo says ‘it was one of the biggest decisions I have made in my life so far. At first I was a little bit worried that I had not made the right choice because it was a lot different to England and the more relaxed lifestyle was something that I was not used to.’

Nonyo found it took quite a while to get used to the quiet lifestyle but she is enjoying that now and would miss it hugely. Nonyo now believes she would also miss the great beaches and wide, open spaces - going back to the dirty, packed beaches of Bournemouth does not hold much appeal.

Nonyo’s first job in NZ was at EDS, where she worked in various different positions which were a great learning experience. Her first position was at the CBA helpdesk, dealing with requests and queries regarding computer issues. Nonyo then moved into a more technical role, creating LAN accounts, providing access to files, folders and creating email accounts for the AAPT clients.

There was an opportunity to move into a more senior role which she quickly grabbed. This role was as quality assurance coordinator for the contact centre. It involved analysing the contact agents by listening to their calls and ensuring that all process and procedures were adhered to. In total, Nonyo stayed at EDS for 3 years but found there were not many opportunities to move around and learn new things. She decided to look for a new job to stimulate her brain again and to learn something different. When the job at Zeald.com came up, Nonyo decided joining an innovative website company would provide that opportunity.

Nonyo main interests outside of work are playing sports. At the moment squash is her main interest as she has just taken up this sport. Nonyo also goes to the gym several times a week and never thought she would be so keen on exercise. She says, ‘if I was still living in England and anyone saw me jogging down the road, they would think I’d gone mad – but then jogging with a hangover was never a good idea!’

Nonyo loves to go dancing or clubbing, but not quite as often as she used to. She does like cooking; her specialty being cooking Thai food. Nonyo still loves to travel and her main goal is to visit as many different countries as possible.