Sekulovi are grateful to Rutherford Collage for all the help to settle into the New Zealand lifestyle and very thankful to all the teachers, coaches and mentors from Rutherford who spent countless hours to build their strong core values in life.
They joined Rutherford in 2007, after moving to New Zealand from Europe.
After quickly embracing the English language, they expanded their wings throughout the school by participating in many extracurricular activities.
Simon was part of the 1st Xl football team for over three years and was also in the sports committee. Simona was a head prefect, sports captain, the leader in the school volleyball team and also won the DUX Ludorum in her final year at Rutherford.
After graduation in 2009, while representing the New Zealand national team in volleyball, Simona was scouted and had many amazing offers to go and study in the USA on a full scholarship.
Hence, she went off to study accounting in one of the top business schools in the USA while playing NCAA Division 1 volleyball, enjoying the great games, the very high pressure and the fully fan packed halls.
Upon post-graduation from Seton Hall University, Simona took a job as an auditor at Ernst&Young (EY) in Times Square, New York City.
During that time, Simon graduated from Rutherford Collage in 2011 and he completed a Bachelor of Business and Information Management degree at the University of Auckland.
He did have a short spell of playing semi-professional football in Europe, but decided to return back to New Zealand and kick off his account management career.
Crossmark in Takapuna offered Simon the desired role, not just due to his degree but also due to his experience gained at Countdown Te Atatu.
While both Simon and Simona were enjoying their professional roles and their lifestyles in Auckland and New York, they both decided to move to Sydney in their corresponding roles with their respective companies, Crossmark and EY.
Fast forwarding past the last 3 years in Australia, Simona has become an Assistant Manager in the audit team and keeps climbing up the ladder at EY, while Simon has moved to a global pharmaceutical company, Aspen, and had been promoted to a National Account Manager.
Simona had 5 amazing years of living the American dream and is very grateful for the opportunities she has received in both America and Australia.
Simon on the other side, moved to Sydney to excel his career. He had some giant career goals, nevertheless he achieved those faster than expected, so recently he visited Rutherford Collage and reflected back on one of his favourite quotes, “The rung of a ladder was never meant to be rested on, but only to hold a person’s foot long enough to climb even higher..”.
Simona is still playing volleyball at the highest level and is the captain of the Sydney Amazons volleyball team while working full time and Simon could not be kept away from competing in football, so he is currently participating in few futsal competitions.
They claim that sport has taught them so much and many of the skills they have learned through sport, have easily been transferable to their everyday work life.
Along the way, Simon and Simona both had to make many risky decisions, however, that has opened a lot of great opportunities and they wouldn’t trade their individual decisions and experiences for anything
