How Gold Coast construction entrepreneur Tamika Smith found success in male-dominated industry
Being a woman in the construction industry definitely has its advantages — just ask Tamika Smith.
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BEING a woman in the construction industry definitely has its advantages — just ask Tamika Smith.
The founder of networking website Top 100 Women in Construction said she learnt pretty quickly how to use her approachable nature.
“I’m young and I’m blonde, everything construction doesn’t look like,” Ms Smith said.
“But I also had the opportunity to be that non-threatening person. I did use that to my advantage to a degree – they (construction workers) would also reveal all of their trade secrets.”
The Biggera Waters woman is a finalist in our Harvey Norman Women of The Year awards in the entrepreneur category for being a trailblazer and role model in a male-dominated industry.
Ms Smith started her own construction company at 19 and went on to create Top 100 Women, a networking community for women in construction.
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“Initially the goal was to feature 100 women and that was it. It was my objective to say I’m not the only one, there are others,” Ms Smith said.
“When you step into a male-dominated field everyone says you’ve got to be like a man — we worked to showcase 100 women in their authenticity.
“We started displaying this softer image of women in male-dominated places. They shared their profiles and it just continued to scale.”
Today the website is multifaceted, a tool for workers and employers to interact and connect with job opportunities.
“We built an online platform to deliver a solution – part Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.
“It’s an exclusive community they can interact in. It holds their CV and employers can post opportunities and women can directly apply.
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“The next step is to offer educational opportunities, like ‘you want to be a project manager? Here’s how’.”
As a finalist in the Women of the Year awards, Ms Smith has a chance to be crowned the winner of our People’s Choice vote.
Readers can vote for one of 24 finalists to win the popular vote at womenoftheyear.com.au before the poll closes this Saturday.
The winners of eight categories and the popular vote winner will be announced on June 27.
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