Meet our evoke^AG. 2020 Future Young Leaders – Genevieve Griffin-George

Genevieve Griffin-George is the Founder of PICMI, a simple technology-based solution that makes hiring seasonal staff simple. It streamlines the employment process resulting in workers arriving prepared, compliant and ready to start work.

A global nomad, Genevieve grew up and worked overseas and has lived in various countries in Asia, Europe and the Middle East. She has an international focus and understands the importance of people and culture.

Before starting her business, Genevieve was a management consultant at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) in New Zealand working to solve complex problems that have a real impact on people, processes, culture and strategy. An accident on her family’s Kiwifruit orchard three years ago catapulted her into the world of agriculture. She experienced the challenges and frustrations faced by growers in hiring seasonal labour and knew there had to be a better way. She has been using her skills incorporating design-thinking, technology and business to work to connect industry and government at a global scale to help solve the international problem of seasonal staffing.

What are your future aspirations for the agricultural sector and/or the food industry? 

I would like agriculture to be the industry that future generations aspire to work in, create innovations for and work collectively to make the industry a place that people have a desire to work in. Technology can be used to solve complex problems and to build tools that will enable farmers and growers to be more efficient, foster innovation and be more sustainable. I would like to see the use of technology reduce food wastage caused by labour shortages, cosmetic parameters and uncertain market demand and to find sustainable ways of redistributing food.

What steps have you already taken to help achieve your aspirations outlined above?

I was frustrated that there was no solution to a problem that was impacting the agricultural industry on a global scale. I had to do something about it so I decided to leave my job and create my own business.

This wasn’t something I was going to be able to do alone. I have focused on building a team that has the experience, knowledge and will to do things differently.  We are building simple and usable technology in parallel with the industry and iterating as we go.

To have the impact needed we must work across the entire industry. I have been working to ‘connect the dots’ across government, industry and a changing workforce to understand their individual needs incorporating them.

By creating a platform that businesses and job seekers want to use, we can share critical data with government and industry. This real-time data can be used to predict trends and to inform policy and advocacy. We can open up opportunities around ‘sharing workers’ through visualising the supply chain demands of when and where workers are needed. This will ease the load on agribusiness’ to support a workforce that is seeking more work flexibility and in turn incentivise new people into our industry.

What is the number one activity you would like to do for the agricultural sector and/or the food industry? 

I will continue to build my business and support the team to design tools and solve problems that will enable and empower growers, farmers and the agricultural industry.  I believe that by designing with the industry rather than ‘for’ the industry we can build products that will revolutionise the way we currently work.

I intend to utilise technology to create practical and easily used tools that will mean we can make better decisions, identifying areas that need innovation as well as optimising and streamlining processes. I want to give time back to farmers and growers so they can spend less time on administration and more time focussing on people and sustainability.