2022 NFP Conference Speakers
David Downs BSc, CMInstD
David is a consultant and board director, with a portfolio of interests keeping him busy, across some key theme areas of technology for public good, healthcare and education. David is currently CEO of the New Zealand Story, an ambitious organisation marketing New Zealand to the world.
Most recently, David was a General Manager at New Zealand Trade and Enterprise (NZTE), working with the Technology sector to help fast growing tech companies grow internationally, and leading a cross-government project for the Agritech sector. David has held various roles at NZTE, in the Services, Customer and Corporate Services teams.
He also leads the NZ Governments Agritech taskforce, helping to design and implement the Industry Transformation Plan for the Agritech sector, working for MBIE.
David spent 13 years at Microsoft, in New Zealand and as regional director for Southeast Asia, and he has set up and run successful businesses of his own. David is a published author on New Zealand Innovation, with two highly successful books – No.8 Re-wired, and No.8 Recharged.
A chartered member of Institute of Directors, David is on a few boards including MOTAT, Augusto Group and Venture Taranaki, and the executive advisory committee for Department of Internal Affairs (DIA). He is chair of the Well Foundation, the charity of the Waitemata DHB, and of the Kupe Scholarship for Auckland University. He acts as a trustee for the Hi-Tech Trust, and the Young Enterprise Trust.
He’s an ex-comedian, TV and Radio actor, semi-finalist for New Zealander of the Year, and a genetically modified organism who documented his battle with cancer in the book A Mild Touch of the Cancer. David is a popular MC and speaker, and he regularly presents and gives talks on his cancer journey and on the power of positive thinking and optimism.
At the beginning of the Covid-19 lockdown, David co-founded sosbusiness.nz a not-for-profit initiative to help bars, cafes and other small businesses sell vouchers. It quickly became a huge hit and to date has sold over $2 million in vouchers for over 2500 small businesses. All the money goes to the businesses.
Specialties: Governance; Leadership; MC and Public Speaking; General Management, Professional Services; Contract negotiation; Sales; Sales Management; Marketing; General Management; IT Strategy; Emerging and developing markets
Melissa Clark-Reynolds ONZM, ChMInstD
Melissa is widely recognised as an inspirational role model and business leader.
Melissa became a Foresight Practitioner and Professional Director after 25 years’ experience as a technology entrepreneur and CEO of a number of Technology companies. She is Deputy Chair of Radio NZ, and sits on the Boards of Jasmax, and Beef and Lamb NZ Ltd. Melissa was previously a Director of Kiwi Insurance Ltd, the first non-farmer Director of New Zealand Beef + Lamb, a Member of MPI’s Primary Growth Partnership Investment Advisory Panel and Chair of the LINZ Risk & Audit Committee. Melissa has been part of the Te Hono Primary Sector Bootcamp at Stanford University twice. She trained as a Foresight Practitioner with The Institute for the Future in Palo Alto and also with Clayton Christiansen in his approach to Disruptive Innovation through Harvard. In 2018 she trained with Sohail Inayutullah in his CLA and Foresight Methodologies.
FutureCentre.nz works with companies like AsureQuality, Kotahi, Wakatu, the NZ Screen Sector, BiosecurityNZ and Lincoln University on Strategy and Foresight. Melissa has a particular interest in Platform and Subscription Business Models. She developed and teaches a course in Strategy and Disruptive Business Models for the NZ Institute of Directors.
Melissa is an in-demand speaker, particularly as a futurist.She talks about how bringing love, connection and understanding into business and farming can help humanity solve some of our greatest challenges such as climate change.
In recent years she has keynoted the Plumbers Association, Flooring Xtra, Laser, NZFSG High Achievers, CAANZ, Plastics Association, BNZ and Architectural Designers Conferences.
Mark Simiona, CEO/Founder Cast Consulting
Mark Simiona is the CEO and founder of Cast Consulting, a startup in the critical thinking space, looking at working across the many sectors around health and wellbeing for all, through working in the spaces where people live, learn, work, play and pray in an effort to improve access and choice. Mark believes that CAST consulting has the potential to facilitate the collaborative transformative change required to improve outcomes. Mark has led ground up community led and driven initiatives, and he is passionate about tackling inequality and established CAST Consulting to focus on developing scalable innovative collaborative solutions by helping others to look at what they can do differently, to get a better result. He feels strongly about good governance in solving complex problems, and sits on a number of governance boards that involve commercial, not-for-profit, central and local government organisations.
Mark will present the casestudy on System Collaboration - Hapori Whānui - the challenge of doing it together.
Aly McNicoll, Director NZ Coaching & Mentoring Centre/LEAD Centre for Not for Profit Governance & Leadership
Aly McNicoll is a Director of the NZ Coaching & Mentoring Centre/LEAD Centre for Not for Profit Governance & Leadership and has been involved with coaching, mentoring and leadership in New Zealand and Australia for the last 12 years. She has refined techniques for both introducing coaching as a skill set and promoting learning as a way of being in teams and organisations.
Aly is a regular presenter at international conferences (American Society for Training & Development Conference, European Mentoring & Coaching Council Conference) where her specialist skills in peer learning techniques have led to her spending increasing proportions of her time working with clients in Australia, the UK and the USA.
Prior to her corporate training role, Aly has led leadership and management programmes at Unitec Institute of Technology where she is a senior lecturer on the Graduate Diploma in Not-for-Profit Management.
Matthew Tukaki, Executive Director, Member of the National Executive, Chair of Auckland District, Te Kaunihera Māori o Aoteaora – New Zealand Māori Council
Matthew Tukaki has either been a director or chair of a number of public, private and not for profit organisations for more than 20 years. He is currently the Executive Director, Member of the National Executive, Chair of Auckland District, Te Kaunihera Māori o Aoteaora – New Zealand Māori Council. He is a former non-executive Director of the Board of Suicide Prevention Australia and Chair of it’s audit and finance committee, Chair of Deakin University CSaRO and Chair of the International Advisory Board of a joint research collaboration between the University of Sydney and the National Science Foundation of the United States. Between 2010 – 13 he was Australia’s representative to the United Nations Global Compact and was appointed to the UNGC governing board by the UN Secretary General, Ban Ki Moon, in 2013 after leading a wholesale review into the sustainability of the organisations more than 100 country outposts.
In the business world Matthew is better known and the former head of Drake International, Chairman of Splash Marketing, the WorkWise Group and latterly the social investment business, Sustain Group. He is the founder and CEO of EntreHub.org.
David Matthews, Chief Executive CCS Disability Action
David Matthews has worked in the education and disability sectors for forty eight years focusing on special education programmes and services and supporting disabled people to access the community. He has held senior leadership positions in schools, government and agencies and is currently Chief Executive of CCS Disability Action.
David is passionate about social justice and encouraging social change which will bring about a more inclusive world. He fully supports the principles and values of the changes occurring in the disability sector in New Zealand and has been involved with a number of national leadership working groups including the Disability Strategy Review reference group and the Ministerial Transformation of the Disability Sector Design group.
David brings a community development perspective to his work gained from leading an organisation that is recognised for its innovative work and commitment to adding value to the lives of disabled people and their families. He is committed to ensuring that the voices of all disabled people and their families, especially those who are struggling on a day to day basis. are heard.
David is married with three adult children, works in Wellington NZ but spends his weekends at home in Christchurch NZ.
Geoff Pearman, Managing Director, Partners in Change
Geoff Pearman is the Managing Director and Principal Consultant of Partners in Change, a Trans-Tasman organisational and workforce development consultancy that specialises in age and work. Over the past 8 years Geoff has worked with over 120 companies in Australia and NZ ranging in size from 34,000 employees to owner operators to assist them address the challenges and opportunities of longevity. He has worked across most sectors. He is a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for Services to Business and Seniors.
He is also the founder of Senior Entrepreneurs New Zealand having gone into business for the first time himself at the age of 61. He is currently leading a research project “Senior/ Kaumatua Entrepreneurs in Aotearoa New Zealand”.
He is sought after as a speaker and commentator on age and work. His first book Doing It Differently - life and work after 50 was published in 2016.
Geoff has qualifications in the sociology of organisational change, social work and learning and development. His skills have been developed through leadership roles in the university, government and human services sectors. Geoff’s career has seen him working in both New Zealand and Australia.
Hazel Jennings, Digital Coach, Dale Jennings Associates
Hazel has worked across the NZ non-profit sector for over 12 years building digital capabilities and confidence. Her small consultancy works exclusively with non-profit leadership teams; offering vendor independent advice and coaching support on their digital journey. Hazel has an MSc in organisational development, is a Chartered IT Professional, a Chartered member of the Institute of Directors and a member of Netsafe. Her governance roles include service with the 2020 Trust, IT Professionals NZ, and Generosity NZ.
Tipene Pickett, Senior Clinician and Trainer
Nga Ngaru a Te Huki te Maunga – The waves of Te Huki is my Mountain
Waihua te Awa – Waihua is my River
Kahungunu te Iwi – Kahungunu is my tribe
Kurahikakawa te Hapu – Kurahikakawa is my Sub-tribe
Waihua te Marae – Waihua is my Marae
Ko Tipene Pickett toku ingoa – Tipene Pickett is my name
P Grad Cert Health Sciences, BA soc sci, Member of Motivational Interviewing Network of Trainers.
As a member of the Motivational Interviewing Network of Trainers means I’m part of a global community of people who share a similar vision of change and scrutiny of professional practice in order to be the most effective clinicians we can be by embracing the way of being MI offers. My special interest is in the relationship between MI and Cultural practices that facilitate change and have developed a framework for framing the journey of MI within the context of Maori practices (Tikanga) particularly the Powhiri process of engagement.
Kieran Bird, Client Care Manager, William Buck
Self-confidence is a critical part of being both successful in business, and happy in our personal lives. Kieran’s 2018 book ‘Unshakeable Self-Confidence: Why Organisations Should, and How Individuals Can, Develop Higher Self-Confidence’ explores the link between individual self-confidence and organisational productivity. It then goes on to cover the techniques to gain confidence steadily over time as well as 14 tools to use to rapidly improve happiness day-to-day.
Kieran created and delivered workshops for the New Zealand Institute of Management (now IMNZ) from 2012-2015. He studied Psychology at Waikato University, Marketing at Massey and Adult Education and Training at the New Zealand Institute of Management.
Colin Bass, Founder, Business Lab
As founding director of Business Lab, Colin has been at the forefront of designing innovative engagement frameworks with clients across New Zealand for almost 20 years. He has worked with residential communities, business communities, town centres, not for profit clusters, government departments, children and young people, seniors, sports clubs and associations. He is a passionate advocate for international trends including collective impact, inclusive development and localism, all requiring effective engagement frameworks for implementation. Together with his colleague Paul McGregor and the Business Lab team, Colin is leading the development of a range of innovative engagement tools including the recently launched Engagement Canvas which guides clients through a 12 step engagement design process. Colin and Paul will be introducing the Engagement Canvas during their conference workshops.
Robin L. Cabral, MA, CFRE, MFIA
Robin L. Cabral is a Certified Fund Raising Executive (CFRE) with over twenty-five years of experience and millions of dollars raised. She has overseen all aspects of fund development, from annual funds to capital campaigns to donor communications. Robin has obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree in Sociology from the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, and a Master of Arts in Philanthropy and Fund Development from Saint Mary’s of Minnesota, USA. She currently holds the designation of Certified Fund Raising Executive (CFRE) and is a graduate of Leadership Southcoast (2010). As an active member of the Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP), she adheres to the AFP Code of Ethical Principles and Standards of Professional Practice. She was on the board of AFP-RI (Rhode Island) and was a recent AFP-RI Conference Planning Committee Co-Chair. She is also an AFP Master Faculty Trainer and has served on the AFP International Education and Training Committee. She currently serves as a member of the AFP International Fundraising Effectiveness Project (FEP) Committee. Robin is also a Member of the Fundraising Institute of Australia (MFIA) and adheres to its Code of Conduct. Robin has served on numerous boards and committees of organizations. She has been named one of the Top 10 LinkedIn Top Voices 2018: Philanthropy and Global Development and one of the Top 100 Charity Influencers by Onalytica (2019).
Christine Whelan, Senior Consultant, Strategic Pay
For the last 10 years Christine has been working in the field of remuneration consulting and has worked with clients across all sectors of the New Zealand marketplace, and with a number of different industry groups.
Previous consulting projects include remuneration strategy and performance management systems for clients in the not for profit, pharmaceutical, engineering consultancy and manufacturing industries as well as significant remuneration structure projects, and short-term incentive projects in several different industries.
Christine has more than 20 years’ Human Resources experience, including several years with the SkyCity Entertainment Group, where her last role was Remuneration and Performance Manager. This role included managing the remuneration portfolio for all SkyCity’s businesses in both New Zealand and Australia.
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