Small Business Project: Genetic counsellor sets up pioneering practice in Tauranga, aims to educate

Monday, 13 April 2026

The Small Business Project is a weekly series that shines the spotlight on Kiwi small businesses doing interesting and unusual things in their industries.

Genetic counsellor Romy Kerr is one of only 30 such professionals in New Zealand. The specialist-trained scientist set up her own practice to be able to continue her work once she moved to Tauranga. Kerr tells Aimee Shaw she is hopeful New Zealand will introduce laws to stop insurance companies from unfairly covering people with genetic conditions, and she plans to grow the organisation and employ more genetic counsellors.

What has your venture set out to achieve?

I qualified as a genetic counsellor in 2016 and worked in the Auckland Genetic Health Service for a number of years. In New Zealand you have to live in Auckland, Wellington or Christchurch to work as a genetic counsellor, so you are quite restricted to your place of residence. We decided to move to Tauranga in 2022 post-Covid and after my first child as we didn't have any family in Auckland, and so we took the risk without any jobs. I struggled to find work as a genetic counsellor, because it's a very niche field, so I then began my own business in 2024.

A genetic counsellor is somebody who has training in genetic science, the technology of how genetic tests work and also genetic medicine. We help people make decisions around what to test or when to test, or what not to test, or how it might impact them or their family. We're trying to figure out the risk of a genetic condition, or what kind of genetic condition could be explaining a person's health history.

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The main thing I test for is hereditary cancer. Everyone knows somebody who's had cancer, so it's something people are concerned about. There are certain genetic conditions can lead a person to have a much higher risk. Some of that testing is funded through the public system, but a lot of people aren't eligible, or have to wait for more than a year to be seen.

How much time and money have you invested?

I work around school hours, so at the moment I work about 20 hours a week. In that time, I'm able to see five to eight patients. It varies hugely.

I charge between $300-$400 depending on the situation. I can get testing funding for some of the people I see, but in many cases, they can’t get funded testing, and there can be quite a lot of cost involved, depending on the condition or the situation. Sometimes it's A$100, sometimes it can be more than A$1000. I use labs from overseas or local labs, if I'm able to.

I put an initial sum of money into the business, which I made back within the first year, but I’m not paying myself for the amount of time that I actually am working, because I’m still trying to get the business to a sustainable level.

What’s the biggest challenge your business is facing?

My challenge is that many people have never heard of genetic counselling and have no idea that it's a thing and how helpful it could be. I'm doing lots of work on trying to help people understand who I am and what I do, so that I can keep doing this job and help more people.

I spend a lot of time connecting with health professionals and alerting them that I exist. Many health professionals don't know a lot about genetics, and those that do aren't always sure how to go about organising it, and also that some of the testing that they might think that they can just order for their patients, they're actually not allowed to.

What’s the biggest issue impacting your industry?

There are a lot of genetic counsellors, but there's not enough funding in New Zealand for them to have positions. New Zealand genetic counsellors are also paid substantially less than Australian genetic counsellors, so the draw to come to New Zealand is small. You can't train here either, you have to train overseas; there are a lot of obstacles just to even get into the public system.

At the moment, New Zealand insurance companies can use genetic results to change your policy. Just this last week, Australia has managed to put into law that life insurance providers are not allowed to use genetic results to influence their policies, although they’ve got six months before it actually becomes enforceable. Many people here are choosing not to have genetic tests because they're worried that it's going to impact their insurance policy.

What’s your background?

I grew up in Taranaki, but my family is South African, so I did my undergraduate degree at the University of Cape Town, which is where I encountered genetic counselling for the first time. I did an honours there as well. And then because I knew that I wanted to work at least some of my career in New Zealand, the closest that I could get was Australia, so I did a two year master's of genetic counselling at the University of Sydney. I worked for Genetic Health Services for five years and have been doing this for three years.

In three years’ time you will be …

Supporting myself and potentially employing other genetic counsellors so they have more than one option of where they can work in New Zealand. I’d also like to potentially grow into different areas of genetic testing. My training is very much on disease, so testing for genetic syndromes, but there are lots of other types of genetic testing. For example, one called pharmacogenomics, which is testing for the impact of our genes on how well we can use medication - some people will metabolise medicines better than others, and we're all kind of given a standard dose, but maybe we should be given more or less of a particular medicine because of our genes. That’s not something that's widely understood or accessible in New Zealand so there are other areas I’d like to expand into to extend the offering I have with training.

What’s one thing you wish you’d known before starting the business?

I went into this without any business management skills or knowledge. I think having accessible training and expertise on how to run a business, tax and finances and stuff like that, might have affected sort of my strategy and building the business and developing it from the early stages, because I would have had a better understanding of planning and finances.

Most helpful piece of advice you have ever received?

Just try - give it a go and and see what happens, because you never know what the outcome is going to be.

If you would like your business to feature in The Small Business Project, email Aimee Shaw at aimee.shaw@stuff.co.nz