Hayley Cunningham - Partner, Agribusiness

I'm a Partner, Agribusiness, based at our Hamilton Agri Service Centre in the heart of the Waikato. I've been with BNZ for 23 years and I'm pretty sure I'm the only one in the team whose last job was working as an artist for the Education Department! Why did I apply? I had friends who worked here and they told me it was a really great place to work. They were right!

The main reason I'm better off here is the people I work with. They're a terrific, intelligent, hard-working bunch. We share interests; we point out interesting technical developments to each other and we share what we've learned. I am often surprised by the dedication and perseverance I see in those working at BNZ.

Giving rural banking advice to clients including dairy, sheep and beef, cropping, horticulture and complex lifestyle block owners means there's really no such thing as a typical day. When I'm not out talking with clients, my day runs from 8am to 4.30pm and might find me doing some of the following:

• Prioritise my day as certain loans can have short time frames
• Check any accounts that are in excess and contact clients to arrange for overdrafts or clearance of their accounts
• Complete phone loans - these can take from 30 minutes through to 3 hours
• Call clients who have loans coming off fixed rates and update them with the latest economic reviews
• Try to contact a farmer each day to touch base and review their accounts - this can take from 20 minutes through to 1.5 hours depending on what needs are uncovered
• Attend start-up meetings and debrief meetings on a Monday and Friday and training on a Tuesday