Ms Wheeldon (37) is managing director of Human Connections Group, a company she set up in Dunedin in 2013 after relocating with her family from Australia.
She offers recruitment and HR solutions for small businesses throughout Otago and the Queenstown Lakes district.
After 15 years of agency recruitment and internal HR experience in senior management roles, it was time to ''take the plunge'' and do something for herself rather than working for others, she said.
The decision to move to New Zealand, after eight years in Sydney, was for family reasons.
UK-born Ms Wheeldon and her Kiwi husband, Cory, whom she met in Sydney and married in Clyde last month, have two young children, aged 2 and 3.
The couple came to Otago to be close to his family and they had also had enough of big-city life.
Sydney was an incredibly expensive place to live and it had got to the point where they questioned what they were doing.
Arriving to snow, after hot temperatures in Sydney, was something of a change, but, having come from the UK, it was a ''bit of readjustment'' to what she knew, she said.
There were also cultural differences, with the ''Kiwi way of life'' a little more-laid back, which filtered into the way people did business.
''The full-on salesy aggressive approach to business you often find in bigger cities just doesn't wash here and it's quite nice because you get that level of sincerity and people give you the time of day.''
Ms Wheeldon recognised there were many small but growing businesses trying to attract, recruit and retain talent, but with little resources, budget and support, and they were often ''getting it wrong''.
She wanted to offer more of a hands-on holistic approach to recruitment and HR, without the price tag of big fees or the need for a full-time HR/recruitment person.
Keen to utilise her skills, whatever she did also needed to fit around the children ''because they still come first''.
''I'm not here to take over the world but make a living and make a difference,'' she said.
Dunedin seemed the ''perfect place'' to start a business and she launched Human Connections Group in August 2013.
As well as low costs, it was a small city so making connections and networks was ''quite easy''.
She was particularly enjoying Dunedin's strong start-up community and she was signed up to work out of the new Startup Space, on the corner of Leithbank and Forth St, when she needed to.
''I'm meeting people through flitting in and out of there, which is good,'' she said.
Both the University of Otago and Otago Polytechnic were supportive of new businesses, she said.
The first 18 months was the ''hard yards'', letting people know who she was and proving herself to customers.
Referral business in Dunedin was ''huge'', she had discovered.
Key clients included L. J. Hooker in Dunedin and Oamaru, Little Wonders, GrabOne, Timely and NZME.
While Ms Wheeldon worked from home, she was looking at getting an office in the city.
What she missed from working in a team in an office, she got from her clients, as she ''almost became part of the team''.
While it was tempting to keep working at night at home, once the children were in bed, she was being quite strict and trying not to work in the evenings.
About 12 months into the business, it had got to the point where she was working most nights until 10pm.
She realised she needed to farm out elements of business development to someone else to focus on and that worked out well.
A full-time business developer, who was also a mother-of-two, had been employed and she was ''out there introducing Human Connections'' and getting the word out, Ms Wheeldon said.
She was happy with what she had already achieved in Dunedin and with the support from the localbusiness community.
Ms Wheeldon has an interest in working with charities for children and she is on the fundraising committee for ChatBus, a free mobile counselling service for children under 14.
The family was also enjoying the lifestyle and made the most of what was on offer in the city, she said.
Having lived in Australia, she was used to being away from family and she was in regular contact with them.
Skype was used about three times a week and she also tried to take the children back to the UK once a year.
''It's hard but you've got to live your life for yourself,'' she said.
There was a very high crime rate where she came from in Nottingham and growing up in an inner-city school was ''interesting''.
''I'm pretty streetwise as a result of that. I don't want my children having to grow up thinking where they can and can't go, always looking behind their back. I never feel unsafe in Dunedin,'' she said.
