Speakers

Hon Grant Robertson

Grant Robertson was born in Palmerston North and lived in Hastings before his family settled in Dunedin. He studied politics at Otago, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts with Honours in 1995. His involvement in the campaign against user-pays education led him to become President of the Otago University Students Association, and, later, Co-President of the New Zealand University Students Association.

Grant joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade in 1997 where he managed the New Zealand Overseas Aid Programme to Samoa. He was also posted to the United Nations in New York, working on environment and development issues.On his return to New Zealand he became an advisor to then-Minister of Environment Marian Hobbs and then to former Prime Minister Helen Clark.

Grant’s belief in social justice and a desire to see every New Zealander able to achieve their potential led him to politics, and he has been the Member of Parliament for Wellington Central since November 2008.

In Opposition, his Labour spokesperson roles included Finance, Employment, Skills & Training, Economic Development, Tertiary Education, State Services, Health, and Arts, Culture & Heritage.

After the 2017 election, Grant was appointed Minister of Finance, Minister for Sport and Recreation, and Associate Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage.


Jerril Rechter

For the past 8 years, Jerril Rechter has been CEO of VicHealth, Victoria's world pioneering health promotion and prevention agency. Under Jerril's leadership, the organisation has made significant progress across a range of health indicators, most particularly the health and wellbeing of women and girls through VicHealth's gender equality focus, and in using Behavioural Insights to nudge better health behaviours and environments. 

Jerril is a former contemporary dancer, choreographer, founding director of a dance company, and CEO of Leadership Victoria.

She was recently appointed CEO of Basketball Australia, where she can continue to pursue her passion for creating equal opportunity for women and girls to participate in sport and physical activity and to feel good about themselves. 


Tim Kastelle

Associate Professor Tim Kastelle is the Director of Graduate Management (Executive Education and MBA) at The University of Queensland. He graduated from Princeton University with a degree in economics, and his MBA and PhD were completed at UQ. He has worked in marketing and management positions in a variety of industries including radio, office equipment, industrial chemicals, higher education and software, and these experiences inform both his research and his teaching. Tim has published widely in the leading innovation journals. He is deeply committed to translating research into practice. To this end, he writes a well-regarded innovation blog for managers (http://timkastelle.org/blog/), and he has worked extensively with a wide range of organisations. Tim has worked closely with the CSIRO to build the national research commercialisation program ON Prime (http://oninnovation.com.au/Programs/ON-Prime).

 


Melissa Clark-Reynolds

Melissa Clark-Reynolds ONZM is widely recognised as an inspirational role model and business leader.

Melissa is a Digital Strategist and Professional Director - with 25 years experience as an entrepreneur and in the business start-up community. She trained with Clayton Christiansen in his approach to Disruptive Innovation through Harvard. 

Melissa has been CEO of a number of technology companies and is a Governor of Radio NZ, and sits on the Boards of ACCURO Insurance, Jasmax, and Softed. Melissa is a Member of MPI’s Primary Growth Partnership Investment Advisory Panel and Chairs the LINZ Risk & Audit Committee. In 2016 she attended the Te Hono Bootcamp at Stanford University.Melissa's story is highly inspiring - she is a dynamic, thought provoking and challenging speaker.


Rebecca Wardell

Rebecca has represented New Zealand at the Olympic Games, Commonwealth Games and World Championships in Athletics (Heptathlon and 400m hurdles). 

Upon retirement in 2012 she went on to work for the New Zealand Olympic Committee before taking up a position at the International Olympic Committee based in Switzerland. 

It was there that the idea of biking back to New Zealand first took shape and she has spent the last year on her bike, a journey of more than 20,000km, raising money for charity, meeting Olympians and sharing the journey with school children along the way.

www.thelongwayhome.co.nz


Hank Rowe

Hank is at the forefront of the micromobility movement in New Zealand. He was the first Lime employee in the country and was part of the team who brought the popular e-scooter sharing service into Auckland, Christchurch in October 2018 and later, the Hutt Valley and Dunedin.  Hank joined Lime after nearly three years in the rideshare space as the operations manager for Uber in New Zealand. He previously held roles at GE Finance and Datamine as a risk analyst and consultant, respectively.  Hank is a born and bred Aucklander, having grown up in Greenlane, and later studying finance and statistics at Auckland University.  He says the opportunity to change the way cities move has always appealed to him. When he's not thinking about how to get more people riding e-scooters in New Zealand, Hank likes to cook, watch sport and play video games.

 


Julian Wilcox

Julian Wilcox (Ngāpuhi) previously held the General Manager Communications role before being appointed as COO in February 2016. Julian worked for Māori Television for more than 10 years, in various roles, notably as General Manager, News and Current Affairs, where he managed a large team of staff providing strategic and operational leadership in a fast-paced environment.

Julian has also had extensive involvement in Māori Radio, which has helped him to develop relationships with iwi, the Crown and Māori communities. While broadcasting has been a key focus of his career, Julian has also lectured in te reo, tikanga, whaikōrero and media. He is committed to Māori development and achieving whānau rangatiratanga, and has a passion for all things Māori.

 

 


Tauawhi Bonilla

Tauawhi is of Māori and Latino descent, his iwi is Ngāpuhi and Ngāti Porou, and he is a product of the Kōhanga Reo, Kura Kaupapa Māori initiatives. Tauawhi is also an old boy of Te Aute College and received Dux and Head Boy honours in his time there. He is a national champion in public speaking in both languages, and he is currently studying Law/Commerce Conjoint at The University of Auckland as well as aiming for his translators’ license for Te Reo Māori. 

Tauawhi has represented his provinces in Softball, Touch, Basketball and Rugby League; he captained the Te Aute 1st XV and he is currently playing rugby for AURFC and has aims on playing high-level rugby in the future.

Tauawhi is also a part of the winning team Ngā Tūmanako who won Te Matatini 2019. He is ambitious and passionate about his people and giving back to his iwi, hapū, and community, and he aims at entering the corporate space as well as being an entrepreneur, sportsman, philanthropist and humble servant for his people. 

 


Holly Thorpe

Holly Thorpe (PhD) is a Professor of Sociology of Sport and Physical Culture at the University of Waikato. Her research interests include Sport for Development, action sports, youth culture, and girls and women’s participation in sport and recreation. Holly embraces interdisciplinary approaches and has published over 65 articles and chapters, three sole-authored books, and six edited books on these topics. 

She currently serves as Associate Editor for the Journal of Sociology, and is co-editor of a new series titled New Femininities in Digital, Physical and Sporting Cultures. Thorpe is passionate about working with industry to find ways to translate academic research into policy and practice. She has worked closely with the International Olympic Committee as they respond to new trends in sport participation and consumption. She is also a founding member of the interdisciplinary High Performance Sport New Zealand WHISPA (Healthy Women in Sport: A Performance Approach) working group, and is on the international advisory board for award-winning NGO Skateistan. 

Professor Thorpe has been a recipient of Fulbright and Leverhulme Fellowships, and received the 2018 New Zealand Royal Society Early Career Research Excellence Award for Social Sciences.

www.waikato.ac.nz/staff-profiles/people/hthorpe

Nida Ahmad

Nida Ahmad is a PhD candidate (in the final few weeks) at the University of Waikato in New Zealand. Her research interests include new media, action sports, cultural studies, and Muslim women, and she publishes both academic and media articles on these topics. 

Nida’s doctoral research is examining the digital lives of Muslim sportswomen and how they are using social media to represent aspects of their identities. 

Nida is a founding member of the international Muslim Women’s Sport Foundation, and has worked with various sports and human rights organizations around the world.

Ben Birks Ang

Ben Birks Ang is the National Youth Services Advisor for Odyssey and the New Zealand Drug Foundation. Ben leads projects that bring different sectors together to the wellbeing of young people and reduces harm from alcohol and other drugs. He has extensive experience establishing and overseeing school-based, community, and residential drug and alcohol programmes. In addition, he is the Chair of the professional association that oversees the competence and ethics of the addiction workforce in New Zealand.

 


Junior and Levi Armstrong

Junior and Levi Armstrong grew up in Hastings, Hawke’s Bay. Like lots of kiwi kids they played lots of sports and managed to do well along the way, representing Hawke’s Bay and New Zealand - Levi was a World Champion with the New Zealand Mens U21 touch team. But unlike most kiwi kids that enjoy sport, the Armstrong brothers grew up poor with a father as a long-time gang member, and close family as gang leaders. Their path looked certain. Fast forward to now and they have degrees in sports management and business, and they strive to give back to society through Patu Aotearoa (Levi Armstrong, CEO), a fitness initiative for māori and low socioeconomic communities, and Sport Hawke’s Bay (Junior Armstrong, Community Sport Manager).

Levi, the founder of Patu Aoteroa, is enthusiastic about helping whanau achieve their goals. Levi changed the status quo for physical activity by designing a mobile-programme, enabling exercise for those who may find it difficult to attend a gym. The programme is particularly focused around improving wellbeing and developing an understanding of physical activity for Māori. Levi and his team are based in Hastings, and now have Patu facilities in eleven cities around Aotearoa.

 Junior is currently the Community Sport Manager with Sport Hawkes Bay. It is his responsibility to manage and lead the community sport team to achieve Sport Hawke’s Bay’s strategic goals, and to provide leadership across the organisation as a member of the Management Team. Junior believes sport is a great vehicle to build tangible life skills, inspire individuals to be the best they can be, and develop well rounded people in society.