Biography

Born in 1972, Jacqui grew up in Nelson, a small city at the top of the South Island in New Zealand.  After finishing school, she spent four years at Canterbury University, Christchurch, New Zealand, where she completed a Bachelor of Science in Psychology and a Bachelor of Arts in Education.

Her real desire was to travel, however, and the next four years were spent travelling and working various jobs around the world.

Highlights include:

  • Living and working a season on the Milford Track, Fiordland, New Zealand and meeting Sir Edmund Hillary.
  • Working on a charter yacht in the Whitsunday Islands, Queensland, Australia.
  • A month in Nepal including a week long rafting trip down the wild Marsiyandi River.
  • Backpacking around Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia
  • Living and working in London
  • Travelling alone through the Middle East
  • Teaching English and selling jewellery on the streets of Seoul, Korea.
  • Skiing in Aspen, Colorado

At the end of 1997, Jacqui decided it was time to choose somewhere to live and returned to Queenstown, New Zealand.  Eventually getting bored with the typical occupations on offer in a resort town (essentially waitressing and selling jetboat rides) Jacqui decided to do a correspondence course in journalism, later completing a Diploma in Freelance Journalism.

Jacqui freelanced for a number of papers and magazines but really had no clue about the business side of her writing.  It was this frustration that led her to write her first book, Go Girl Go! – Real Stories of New Zealand Women in Business.  After interviewing over 60 women around New Zealand about how they had gone about setting up their businesses and the things they’d learned along the way, Jacqui selected just fifteen stories, her own included, that were as vastly different from one another as possible, and wrote the stories endeavouring to use each woman’s own words.  After securing a foreword by Prime Minister Helen Clark, and teaming up with a business partner to start JT Publishing, Go Girl Go! was published in 2001.

Jacqui co-directed JT Publishing Company from 2000-2003 and was involved in all aspects of liaising with writer’s submissions, design, print, promotion, sales & distribution.  Highlights were the publications of two of Jacqui’s own books:

  • Go Girl Go!
  • Taste Queenstown

It was about half way through writing Go Girl Go!, the opportunity that led Jacqui into event management came up, working with three directors to create the inaugural Compaq 50K of Coronet in 2000.  (Sorry, the timeline of Jacqui’s life has never been particularly linear!)

From 2000-2003, Jacqui successfully ran her own event management company, Events Sponsorship Promotion Ltd, in Queenstown, New Zealand.  During this time Jacqui was responsible for managing all aspects of a variety of world-class events.

Highlights include:

  • Involvement in the creation, and then responsibility for the management, of the Compaq 50K of Coronet (annually from 2000-2002) – an international endurance ski race, featuring elite racers from around the world; the creation of the brand charity Cure Kids; a holiday package for a group of sick children & their parents; a week of supporting events & functions including the BMW Gala Dinner; and co-ordinating media, promotion and event logistics.
  • Event management of the Queenstown portion of the Michael Hill International Violin Competition, (2001-2003) in association with the Auckland Philharmonia
  • Creation, launch and event management of the Queenstown Mountainfilm Festival

In 2003, Samantha was born, an unexpected opportunity that Jacqui had decided to take, and Jacqui became a single Mum.  This sparked the end of Events Sponsorship Promotion Ltd and after a pretty revolting few months, Jacqui left Queenstown later that year to regroup, retrain and start again on the business front.

After utilising the services of a life coach herself, Jacqui decided to maximise her background and qualifications in Psychology and retrained as a life coach.  She relocated to Auckland, New Zealand, and began to plan a business in personal development that would incorporate her various skills and experience in psychology, writing, the media, publishing, public speaking, PR and event management.  Jacqui Thomas Ltd (previously called Live Your Dreams Ltd) has been in operation since the beginning of 2004.  In this time Jacqui has been providing individual coaching services, group workshops, speeches and presentations.  Jacqui also wrote a regular life skills column for the Woman’s Day magazine from 2005- 2007.

Four years on, Jacqui still hadn’t managed to shake the considerable debt she left Queenstown with (she was advised to go bankrupt at the time but opted not to) so she decided it was time to deal with it once and for all.  Always one for a decent sized challenge, she set herself a very public challenge to clear her debt and make a million dollars before Samantha turned five.  Her drive was not the money. It was the opportunity to share the experience and the process of achieving her goal, and to show everyone out there who wants to better their financial position but doesn’t know how, that if she can do it, anyone can!

When Samantha’s 5th birthday arrived in March 2008, Jacqui hadn’t reached her million dollar goal.  She had however managed to clear $100,000 worth of debt, invested in some property, set up a new business, learned a lot and inspired those around her to also improve their financial situations.

Another online venture, Get Ahead , evolved out of Jacqui’s key learning from the Millionaire Mummy project – that it’s not money you need to make money, it’s knowledge and the right people around you.  In this online hub of knowledge and support, Jacqui pulled together an impressive line-up of professional experts and partners in the areas of Money, Mindset, Business and Property, all committed to sharing their knowledge and assisting everyday people to get ahead financially.  Initially set up as a subscription based business model, Get Ahead was plagued by numerous technological issues with the integration of various elements of the site.  Get Ahead was taken offline until these technical difficulties can be fully resolved.  It is hoped that sponsorship support may enable this website to be redeveloped and relaunched as a free service.

In the vein of making inspiration and support available and accessible to all, Jacqui is making a lot of her own content freely available through this online platform, www.jacquithomas.com .

Jacqui currently lives in Auckland, New Zealand with her delightful daughter Samantha.

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