Claudia attended St Hilda's between 2006 - 2012. Claudia made the most of the opportunities that were presented to her at St Hilda's, representing the school in rowing, duathlon, running, snow skiing, water skiing and more. In her final year Claudia was Head Girl and was a member of the Board of Trustees. St Hilda's gave Claudia a great foundation for beginning life as a young adult. She attributes much of this to the inspiring group of girls she was surrounded by and the environment that the teachers fostered.
After school, Claudia went on to gain a Bachelor of Commerce, majoring in Marketing and a Bachelor of Applied Science, majoring in Sport and Exercise Nutrition at the University of Otago. Throughout her time at University she continued to make the most of the opportunities available to her. She continued to competitively row and was selected as a member of the New Zealand University Rowing team. She also represented New Zealand Universities at a Business Competition in America. It was throughout her time at University where she had the first taste of where her career may take her. Claudia managed a subsidiary of Crimson Education, a global education company, she started her own business venture and worked for a few startups.
After University, Claudia took a job offer with PwC as a Management Consultant. Here she specialised business advisory services for health related entities. This saw her working on some of New Zealand's largest and most impactful projects, which included the COVID-19 response.
After a taste of entrepreneurial life early in her career, gaining a solid set of core skills from PwC and a desire to leave the world in a better place, it was time for a change. After three and a half years, Claudia and her colleague went on leave from PwC to pursue this dream. Claudia is now the Co-Founder and Director of her own company, Hitch. Hitch is solving the problem that everyday in New Zealand 1.4 million kiwis drive to work and nearly all of them drive alone. It contributes to traffic congestion, high cost of travel, strain on infrastructure, but most importantly, it contributes to climate change. It's a tough issue to be tackling as the transport options in New Zealand are sparse and we have a deeply embedded car culture. Hitch is tackling the issue by working with workplaces to quantify the impact of their transport emissions and then reduce these. It's still early days for Hitch, but they are proud of every car Hitch takes off the road. It's ultimately contributing to our goal of a cleaner, greener society. A future with less cars and connected healthier communities. It's taken courage and hard work to get Hitch off the ground but she truly believes the confidence to follow her passion and the work ethic it has required were two important traits that were instilled in her at St Hilda's.