Great Southern’s Kristen Pyrz-Brown nominated for the Murdoch University people’s choice 40 Under 40 award

Albany’s Kristen Pyrz-Brown has been nominated for Murdoch University’s 40 Under 40 people’s choice award. The award is voted on by the public and celebrates WA’s young entrepreneurs. Ms Pyrz-Brown has lived in Albany for little more than a year, but she has made a mark on her community in that time. She has created Valeo Coaching, started the Secret Lady Biz podcast, organised TEDxKinjarling, and joined the boards of Outdoors Great Southern and the Denmark Community Resource Centre. While she was “surprised” to be nominated for the award, she said it was an “honour to have that recognition”. One of her passions is helping businesses through Valeo Coaching. “I help business owners navigate around the challenges they’re facing, finding alternative solutions — seeing what resources they have to tap into,” Ms Pyrz-Brown said. If she wins the 40 Under 40 award, Ms Pyrz-Brown said she hoped the recognition would “raise awareness of what’s going on in rural and regional Australia”. “I think sometimes we get so overshadowed by the fact that there’s lots going on in the metro area, and there are people with huge amounts of opportunity and there’s a lot of things that are centralised in Perth,” she said. “But there’s actually a lot going on in regional and rural Australia that is pushing our economy forward.”