I was born and raised in Murihiku. Back in the day, the youngest Otago graduate with a Master’s degree in business administration - from there I sprung into the corporate world and my teams achieved outcomes that progressed us quickly into leadership roles. I went to Australia with the Lion Nathan Group in Strategy and Change and was lured to Nike, eventually running the Pacific region operations out of Australia. We had a great whanau of “mozzies” in Oz but with three young ones, we felt the family pull to New Zealand. Here, I was in GM roles – firstly for Nike NZ, then we moved to the Wairarapa to drive Icebreakers’ expansion as GM of their global operations from Wellington. My corporate sector roles have been around growth, scale and change but outside of New Zealand.

After Icebreaker I took the opportunity to weave in public sector experience. At MPI and MBIE, I held senior official roles with a focus on primary sector innovation and investment, strategy and supporting our trade in G20 / APEC forums. I wanted to get more local in the private sector and I ran Henergy Eggs out of Masterton before Covid hit, which saw our business change and I returned to MBIE, this time focussing on advancing outcomes for Māori and Pasifika in regional development and investment and then onto treasury business cases with MPI’s Te Uru Rākau.