HR CHANGEMAKERS FESTIVAL

Revolutionising industries and fuelling innovation, Anna Mowbray is a powerhouse entrepreneur and one of Aotearoa’s most influential business figures.

As one of the leaders who grew ZURU to billions in trade, she led culture, systems and operations as the company grew across the world.

Today, she leads her new business ZEIL, a cutting-edge, data-driven job marketplace founded in 2022. Nicknamed the 'Tinder for jobs,' ZEIL’s intuitive approach to connecting job seekers and employers by transforming recruitment with a simple 'swipe right to apply' method , aspiring to be the world’s most beloved global recruiting platform.
 

Beyond her ventures, Anna actively invests in New Zealand’s start-up ecosystem and proudly owns the AFC Football team, championing local talent and innovation.

Samantha is the Founder and CEO of Excellent and Founder and Director of Humankind.

Excellent helps organizations around the world develop Employee Experience Design capabilities through learning, certification and community.

Prior to Excellent, for over a decade Samantha has been leading the way in EX thinking through growing the leading HR & EX consulting business in NZ, Humankind.

In 2022 Samantha led a group of 34 contributors to write an EX Manifesto for the world, defining employee experience (EX), the values of EX and principles of EX Design. This Manifesto has been co-signed by hundreds of leaders in over 30 countries.

Over the last two years Samantha has built an extensive network of HR and EX professionals around the world - and is contributing to conversations on the future of work in leading global organisations.

Anna Liumaihetau Darling is the General Manager of People Experience at Sharesies.

She has been at Sharesies for over 4 years now and has seen Sharesies grow from 50 people to over 200 in NZ and AU. 

Anna's worked in the HR space on and off for 15 years both in NZ and the UK and is passionate about putting people at the centre of what we do.

Their team is called People Experience for a reason - if people are spending a good chunk of their week working, we want them to have a really enjoyable experience while they're doing it.
 

Anna also spent 5 years working in women's rugby development and is passionate about providing opportunities for those who don't always have access to them.

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Anna will be sharing about leading a restructure with empathy and care.

Lisa Young is an HR Coach, Digital Educator and the founder of HRHQ, an online community and education platform for HR professionals.

After spending over a decade in retail, sales, and operations, Lisa identified her talent and passion with people and chose to pursue a career in HR. Since then, Lisa has partnered with hundreds of employers and managers to develop their leadership capabilities, grow engaged teams, navigate day-to-day employment situations and be more strategic in their approach to people management.

Her focus now is helping others in HR do the same. 

Lisa is passionate about elevating HR’s reputation, advocating for superior HR practices, and equipping HR professionals with the skills and knowledge to make a real impact 

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Lisa will be sharing with us about Convincing the C-Suite: Crafting the Case for Change.

John Berry was awarded the Sustainable Business Networks Sustainability Superstar for 2023. An award that recognises his commitment to go above and beyond to bring about sustainability change in Aotearoa, progressing social and/or environmental action, either within their organisation or in the wider community.

As co-founder and CEO of Pathfinder Asset Management, John has led the company from pretty much zero in an office above his garage to a significant funds management business – investing with an ethical lens. 

An eternal optimist, in the face of daunting global challenges his message is simple - each of us can positively impact our communities in three straightforward ways – how we spend our time, how we spend our money and how we invest our money.  The last of these is where John dedicates his efforts.

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John will be sharing on lifting financial, employee & planetary wellbeing. 

Gillian is an HR professional with an academic background in economics.

Her happy place is finding way to create a healthy economy that works for business and for people.

She's been self employed since 2019 with a focus on creating flexible workplaces.

Her book, Flexperts, was published in May 2023. 

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Gillian will be sharing all her insights and wisdom about Frontline Flex. 

On a mission to revolutionize the way organizations engage in and support the health and wellbeing of their people. Improving accessibility, equity, and outcomes for people and improving organizational performance.

His started his journey in rehabilitative healthcare. At age 22, Steve and a business partner scaled their healthcare business to 15 clinics and 120 staff across six different healthcare disciplines in 5 years, treating 120+ thousand unique patients.

His firsthand experience at the front line of healthcare exposed how cost was the biggest single hurdle that prevented people accessing healthcare when they needed it.

   
Determined to solve this issue on a broader scale, Steve delved back into the startup sphere to build HealthNow. 

HealthNow, operates at the nexus of Fintech, Healthtech, and employee benefits.

Jayne is a leading Executive Coach and Leadership Development specialist who is passionate about creating spaces for women to self actualise their lives AND careers.  Too often she sees women walk the path others think they should, rather than be intentional with creating their own.

She is well known for her expertise in supporting working mothers as they detour off and back onto the career track and  professional women to enhance their careers and develop into leadership.  Her mission is to increase the number and diversity of women leading for Aotearoa.

She is author of "A Slight Detour" a guide to successfully navigating family & career.  A fierce working parents advocate she sees the challenges working parents face as they navigate the demands of our modern world when it comes to the juggle.

Jayne has over 20 years’ experience across many sectors, different organisations, and varying levels of leadership.

Natasya Jones | Co-founder | Managing Director
Grad Dip BBus(Hons), ICC, and PEERS accredited.
Driving force behind DivergenThinking!

Why? Our Neurodiverse individuals (approx 40% pop. are not getting an equal opportunity to thrive in life (like Neurotypical), and that is not OK.

At DivergenThinking, we are here to educate and support those who are educating, working with, and looking after Neurodiverse youth.
When everyone learns, we are all human, with strengths (we may not realise, because we are not often told and appreciated), challenges we are most often told over, and over, often leading to poor mental wellbeing outcomes. 
 

The sheer volume of which this occurs to Neurodiverse individuals has horrific outcomes for Neurodiverse individuals.
 

Strengths-based leadership in schools, workplaces, or society, improves mental well-being.

Elizabeth Fahey is an organisational change and development specialist, retirement coach and founder of The Next Chapter a development organisation specialising in supporting people to plan and navigate their next chapter into what we previously called retirement. 

Traditional approaches to retirement are changing and the way we support these transitions also needs to adapt.  

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Elizabeth is interested in the changing global trends in how we support older workers in the workplace, break down stereotypes and successfully manage multi-generational workplaces.

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Elizabeth will be helping us with mining the (g)old   - the untapped potential of the older workforce 

Zoe specialises in belonging, inclusion, and wellbeing at work, and is fascinated in exploring different ways to foster belonging for everyone.

She runs Belonging Club; a space for people passionate about belonging to connect, share, and support each other.

She also works closely with organisations to help them create a culture of wellbeing and belonging for all their people, and has a background in governance, health, and education

Georgie’s dream is for everyone to lead extraordinary lives. With years of experience in the global commercial events and marketing worlds, she joined a start-up called FizzPopBANG in London back in 2015.

Armed with a BSc (Hons) in Psychology she a Performance and Development Coach along with being both Strengthscope and Talogy Emotional Intelligence accredited, she has been driven to deliver experiences that have a lasting impact on people’s lives…with a touch of sparkle.

Recently returning home to Aotearoa, Georgie brought FizzPopBANG here to help build awesome business cultures through employee engagement. With her team, they help clients from all industries connect their people to their unique company identity, to create amazing results. 

Dr Amanda Sterling is a neuroscience-trained coach and business consultant who works with organisations to increase the representation of women in leadership positions.

She is the author of world-first research exploring the experiences of mothers in leadership positions, what these stories tell us about norms of leadership, and the possibilities for greater inclusion of women. Her research has been featured in NewsHub, The Press, The Dominion Post, NewsTalkZB, RNZ’s The Panel and by the University of Auckland. Amanda’s background includes corporate leadership development mostly for large and complex organisations.

She blends her deep expertise on women in leadership with her practical experience in organisational development and culture to start conversations, identify the things that are going to make the biggest impact, and build inclusive leadership capability.

Emmajane Love is an International Bestselling Author, Speaker and Facilitator and spent a decade working in management in corporate before moving into running her own businesses in 2012.

In 2019 she ended up in burn out when her nervous system collapsed. This is when she began embarking on a quest to rediscover herself through play, creativity, improv, somatics, nervous system work, and trauma-informed teachings.

This led to her creating her own Embodied Leadership trainings which are transformative experiences that help people to connect to their true selves, regulate their nervous systems, communicate more effectively and experience real connection with others so that they ultimately feel more deeply fulfilled.

Her secret sauce though? Sharing deep, vulnerable stories that captivate like a page-turning novel and facilitating games that create deep connection and bring out people's authentic expression!

Stephanie is the Kaitiaki of Love HR, an entrepreneurial HR business, who measure the progressiveness of an organisation’s people practices and policies, offering practical solutions to support putting people first.
 

She has over 12 years’ worth of international HR experience, working for organisations such as Disney in the UK, Coca-Cola Europacific and the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, and has HR undergraduate and postgraduate qualifications from Massey University.

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Originally from Auckland, she is now based in Mount Maunganui, servicing all of Aotearoa, and has most recently embraced the digital nomad lifestyle, working, and travelling through India and Southeast Asia for 4 months in 2023.

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Steph is the event MC.