Islands Business - Women: MULTI-MEDIA MATENGA SETS REGIONAL PACE

Building the company a top priority

Nina Ratulele
Every night in Parekura, in the Cook Islands capital of Avarua, on the island of Rarotonga, a light burns in an office upstairs in a new two-storey building.

Workaholic... Jeane Matenga.

The building is the headquarters of the Pitt Media Group, the most multi-media company in the Pacific Islands. The building is a sign of the growth of the Pitt Media Group as a regional media business success story.

The light is in the corner office of Jeane Matenga, the company’s chief executive officer (CEO). It is a sign of her efforts to expand the company.

Constant attention to work and workers, constant effort and a strong education foundation have helped Matenga emerge as one of the region’s leading media women.

However, when Pacific Islands news media women gathered in Nadi, Fiji, last month for a regional meeting, Matenga was amongst the notable absentees.

Matenga was back home working. Which would not surprise anyone who knows her.

To the 32-year-old, it was more important to be at home building the company rather than talking in Nadi.

Home is where the business is, Matenga believes. She is definitely not going to be one of those from the news media who constantly travel the world to international conferences.

The Pitt Media Group was founded by Matenga’s husband George. It is owned by him and other family members. But it is to Matenga—whose two Master’s degrees include an MBA (Master of Business Administration)—they have entrusted the development of the company.

Pitt Media Group operates a wider range of media than any other company in the region. It has:

— the national radio service, Radio Cook Islands, which reaches the outer islands by satellite and local FM station relays and is listened to online by Cook Islanders overseas;
— Cook Islands Television, covering the main island, Rarotonga;
— the popular weekly English-language newspapers Cook Islands Herald and Cook Islands Times;
— two new niche FM radio stations about to open on Rarotonga; and the
— www.ciherald.co.ck website, which provides daily news for the more than 100,000 Cook Islanders living outside the country.

Pitt Media is part of Elijah Communications, of which Matenga is also chief executive. This also has interests in tourism (Mount View Lodges at O’oa on Rarotonga) and property (a conference centre and office building next to the Pitt Media Group building in Parekura.)

In addition, Matenga and Cook Islands Television news director Nanette Woonton jointly operate a busy independent TV and video production company, Mana Productions.

Matenga holds a Bachelor of Communication Engineering (First Class Honours) from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology; Master of Information Management and Systems from Monash University, Melbourne; and Master of Business Administration (Technology Management) from Latrobe University, Melbourne.

She worked as a projects engineer in the Telecom Cook Islands planning division before joining Radio Cook Islands as general manager from July 1999.

This busy media businesswoman recently sat down to answer questions in an ISLANDS BUSINESS interview. Extracts from her views:
On becoming chief executive:

“I became CEO in September 2004 after George Pitt, the CEO at the time, had triple bypass heart surgery and could no longer continue on in full capacity.

“I am George Pitt’s wife of eight years. The company was always going to be run by the family as it is a family business. George felt confident to hand over the company to me as I had worked for him as general manager for Radio Cook Islands, I had run Mana Productions, as well as managed the administration side of Cook Islands Television and the Cook Islands Herald when other family members who were in charge moved overseas.

“I was also very committed to ensuring the success of the company which showed by the long hours I put in just to get the daily work done. Plus, he felt that I had a good business sense.”

On objectives when she took over:

“To improve the quality of our products. To create products that we were all proud to be associated with and to give the Cook Islands a media that they could be proud of. I also wanted to improve the working conditions, making sure staff were compensated properly, they received travel opportunities, training opportunities, they were treated with respect, they were treated fairly in all aspects.”

On challenges as a woman:

“The Cook Islands don’t really suffer from gender issues, women are mostly equal to men and we will see more of them in higher places in the future. Women have rights to the land. They have equal opportunity to apply for any position. In fact in the Cook Islands, the men are doing the role reversal. Many of them are embracing parenthood and are getting involved in the upbringing of their children.”

On achievements since becoming chief executive:

“The achievement I am most proud of is how I used Mana Productions Ltd to upgrade the equipment of Elijah Communications Ltd. This was way before I became CEO. (Matenga spent thousands of hours producing videos of local events for Mana Productions. She then used the money earned to reequip Cook Islands Television and buy equipment for other areas of the company).”

On her role as chief executive:

“I want so much change and I want it now! Basically I want professional looking and sounding products and while I think we have a very good product for the amount of money we make, and the fact that our staff basically taught themselves with a little help here and there.

“But with any change the staff have got to buy into it. I have spent basically the last year and a half working on trying to change the culture of the company, improve the morale, empower them, train them and basically get staff to have all the attitudes that will help the company prosper. And of course with the attitude changes, the products improve.”