Troy Bowker

Executive Chairman
Caniwi Capital
Wellington

Troy Bowker established Caniwi Capital in 2008 on his return to New Zealand after 11 years in London and New York where he worked as an investment banker. Troy holds the position of Executive Chairman of the Group and leads the executive team and the board of directors.

After graduating from University, Troy spent 4 years with Ernst and Young in Auckland, Sydney and London as an international tax specialist prior to embarking on a career in investment banking. Troy Bowker had a decade in senior investment banking positions in London and New York. Troy held positions with Lehman Brothers, Swiss Re Capital Markets and was most recently Managing Director and UK Head Structured Finance and US Head of Asset Finance for HSBC Bank plc.

Troy holds a Bachelor of Management Studies with Honours from the University of Waikato, and a Masters degree in tax policy and economics (with Honours) from the University of Auckland. In addition, he is a New Zealand-qualified Chartered Accountant and a registered investment and derivatives adviser with the UK Financial Services Authority.

Neil Craig

Director & Executive Chairman
Craigs Investment Partners
Bay of Plenty

A former economist for Tasman Pulp & Paper, Neil founded the nationwide financial company Craigs Investment Partners in 1984, with the purchase of a small firm called CJ Rogers in Whakatane. Through a series of acquisitions, he built the company into a full-service sharebroking business with 17 branch offices throughout New Zealand.

Neil is also the chair of NZX-listed Comvita Ltd and chair of the Tauranga-based angel investment group Enterprise Angels Inc. He is also a director of Pohutukawa Private Equity Ltd, AGInvest Holdings Ltd, New Zealand Cricket, and a number of agriculture/horticulture-based and early stage companies.

He is a member of the Institute of Directors.

In 2016 Neil was made an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit for his services to business and philanthropy. He was a trustee of Waipuna Hospice in Tauranga and his company has supported 29 hospices throughout the country. He also helped establish the philanthropic Acorn Foundation, and Craig’s Investment Partners is a national sponsor of the Community Trust Foundation.

Born in Taumarunui, Neil has a Bachelor of Agriculture (Commerce) from Lincoln University, majoring in Economics.

Linda Cooper

Chief Financial Officer
Livestock Improvement Corporation (LIC)
Hamilton

Linda has come full circle, having grown up on a small dairy farm in the Waikato, obtaining a Bachelor of Management Studies (Hons) from Waikato University, and then as a qualified Chartered Accountant working for many years in various finance and management roles for Fisher and Paykel Appliances Ltd, including 12 years in the USA.

She then returned to the Waikato and a job at Livestock Improvement Corporation (LIC), a cooperative owned by NZ dairy farmers that focuses on genetics, herd improvement, software and automation products.

Her role includes supporting LIC strategy and ensuring the health and sustainability of LICs finances, legal risk management and procurement. Financial health includes compliance aspects, reporting internally and externally and ensuring the right capital and resources are available to support the co-operatives strategy and its farmers.

She has a strong interest in animal welfare and travelling beyond NZ shores.

She is an alumni of the Agri Womens Development Trust Leadership Programme, Board member of Government Science for Technological Innovation Programme and is an ex Chair of Waikato SPCA.

Garth Dibley

Chief Executive Officer
WEL Networks
Hamilton

With extensive experience in the generation, retail, transmission, and distribution sectors of New Zealand’s electricity industry Garth took up the position of Chief Executive at WEL Networks in September 2014.

He previously held leadership roles at both Transpower and Meridian Energy. Appointed as General Manager Grid Performance at Transpower in 2010, he led operations and asset maintenance functions of the national grid.

Prior to this, he was based at Meridian Energy, working as General Manager Markets and Production and then General Manager External Relations.

Garth has an MBA from Waikato Management School and a Bachelor of Engineering (Mechanical) from the University of Canterbury. He has completed executive training programmes at Kellogg and INSEAD business schools of management.

Dr Brett Douglas

Former General Manager, Marketing at Steel & Tube Holdings Ltd

After graduating from the University in 1982 with a D.Phil in Literature, Brett’s early career was in government, serving in the New Zealand Embassy in Tokyo as First Secretary (Commercial) and in the Ministry of Forestry, promoting New Zealand internationally as an investment destination for added-value processing. Fluent in Japanese, Brett spent five years in Japan with Carter Holt Harvey, followed by a further five years in Hong Kong, managing international sales of added-value timber products. Returning to New Zealand in 2006, he was based in Carter Holt’s MDF production operation in Canterbury, managing domestic and international sales and eventually in a general management role overseeing logistics, materials supply and sales. Brett's next role was General Manager, Marketing at Steel & Tube Holdings Ltd.

Tony Falkenstein, ONZM

Chief Executive Officer
Just Water International
Auckland

Tony Falkenstein is a the CEO and major shareholder of publicly-listed Just Water International Ltd and a director and shareholder of PureSEO Ltd.

He has been prominent in business education, establishing New Zealand’s first Business High School in 2003, as a precursor to ‘business’ becoming a subject in the New Zealand Curriculum.

Tony was inducted into the New Zealand Business Hall of Fame in 2008, was appointed as an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit (ONZM) in 2010 and was selected as a Distinguished Alumni of the University of Auckland in 2011. In 2012 Tony received a KEA World Class New Zealand Award for ‘New Thinking’. In December 2012, Tony was the first New Zealander to be inducted into the international ‘Beta, Gamma Sigma’ Society, in recognition of his professional achievements.

Veronica Jacobsen

Policy Director, Science, Innovation and International branch
Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE)

Veronica Jacobsen is an economist and lawyer and has a wide background in public policy, covering science and innovation, the environment and natural resources, minerals, justice, labour and social policy. She joined the New Zealand public service after a career as a systems analyst, academic and economic consultant. She is currently a Policy Director at the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment. She has previously worked for the New Zealand Treasury, the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Science and Innovation. Her specialist area of economics is the Economic Analysis of Law. She has been President of the Law and Economic Association of New Zealand (LEANZ) and is currently the Chair of the Government Economics Network (GEN).

Lain Jager

Director/ Investor
Bay of Plenty

Lain Jager is best known as the immediate past CEO of Zespri Group Limited.  Having stepped down at the end of 2017 after 9 years in the CEO role and 18 years with the company,  Lain is now involved in a number of interesting businesses as an Investor and Director.

Lain is based in Tauranga where he lives with his wife Debra.

Nikki Johnson

Chief Executive
NZ Kiwifruit Growers
Tauranga

Nikki Johnson has been CEO of New Zealand Kiwifruit Growers Incorporated (NZKGI) since April 2016. NZKGI is the representative organisation for New Zealand kiwifruit growers which works to advocate, protect and enhance their commercial and political interests. In addition to this position, Nikki has
served as an Associate Board member on the Agcarm board since 2012. Prior to her position at NZKGI, Nikki was Executive Manager of NZ Citrus Growers Incorporated and was co-Director and co-owner of advisory company Market Access Solutionz for 14 years.

Parekawhia McLean

Director Regional Relationships, Central North Island
NZ Transport Agency
Waikato

Parekawhia has been with the Transport Agency since September 2016 after five and a half years as the Chief Executive Officer of Waikato-Tainui/ Te Whakakitenga o Waikato.

Parekawhia has more than 15 years of public policy and public sector management experience including being an advisor to three prime ministers during her time at the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet.

She brings significant stakeholder management and governance experience to the Transport Agency. Parekawhia is also involved in the Transport Agency’s diversity project, developing diversity and inclusion policies for the workplace. For almost seven years she was director of her own company dedicated
to advancing the creative potential of Māori knowledge, people and resources.

Parekawhia has Masters’ degrees in Social Sciences from the University of Waikato and in Public Administration and Development Policy from the University of Wisconsin. In 2014, she received a Distinguished Alumni Award from the University of Waikato and in 2016 was a finalist in the Board and Management
category for the Westpac-Fairfax Women of Influence Awards.

Dr Peter Reynolds

Digital Transformation Director
Capita Plc
London, UK

Peter has over 25 years experience as a senior IT executive and digital transformation director spanning commercial companies (in particular retail banking, commercial banking, and wealth management) as well as government.

He has held roles as Head of IT, Chief Technology Officer, Chief Innovation Officer and Digital Transformation Director. He has been part of CEO and IT executive teams in both line management and consulting roles, working across the USA, Europe, Middle East and Asia- Pacific.   He has set up multiple teams between 40 and 400 people (across customer insight, data scientists, agile software development and day-to-day IT management) and managed budgets of up to $350m affecting IT budgets of up to US$1.2bn per annum.

Peter Reynolds has been a researcher with the MIT Center for Information Systems Research (MIT CISR) since 2009. He has led research on digital transformation, digital innovation, human-centred design and business/IT alignment. He has run workshops and advised business and IT executives across the USA, Europe, and Australia on projects to drive business value from digitisation and data analytics.   In his role with MIT, he has worked with 90+ sponsors globally, including those in Australia: AMP, ANZ, Australian Tax Office, Commonwealth Bank, Department of Immigration and Citizenship, Reserve Bank of Australia, and Westpac.

He is currently retained as an expert witness on global internet banking and wealth management platforms for a matter with one of the top Australian Banks.

Peter's digital roles include:

• Digital Transformation Director, Capita PLC, the UK’s largest provider of business solutions with 74,000 staff, building digital capabilities and delivering digital transformation across private and public sector clients. In this role, he scopes and shapes digital transformation deals across sectors, including financial services.
• Executive Director and Chief Innovation and Technology Officer for one of the UK’s new elite technology innovation centres focused on smart cities (applications of new technologies including Big data, IoT, and mobile technologies/data).
• Chief Technology Officer, Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA), responsible for the architecture and product selection for CBA’s on-line banking platform. He later worked for the Head of Business Strategy and Head of Institutional Banking planning, executing key components of CBA’s $1.4bn IT-based business transformation replacing front-end service and sales processes.

Peter was awarded the global prize for best doctoral dissertation in his field in 2010 for his PhD in Strategy and Entrepreneurship from the Australian Graduate School of Management (AGSM) titled "Aligning Business and IT Strategy in Multi-business Organizations".

He was also recently awarded the UK Management Consultancies Association (MCA) award for best ‘Digital & Technology Project of the Year' 2017 and the Agile award for Best use of Agile in the Public Sector 2016

Wayne Tainui

Head of Manukura Māori Business Team
PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PWC)
Hamilton

Wayne has over 20 years business and commercial experience with PwC in Advisory and Assurance roles, including 4 year’s experience with PwC based in the United Kingdom, and has also worked in several other territories. Wayne’s passions include the Education and Maori sectors.Wayne leads the PwC Waikato’s
Deals team and works with a range of clients to maximise business value and solve business problems. His areas of specialisation include transaction services providing pre and post deals support, buy side and sell side due diligence and strategic and business planning. Wayne is also the National Leader
of the PwC Mānukura Māori Business team and is of Ngāti Maniapoto and Waikato-Tainui descent. Wayne has a Bachelor of Management Studies from the University of Waikato (1995) and is a member of the Institute of Directors. In his spare time, Wayne enjoys a variety of sports activities, travelling and
precious time with his family.

Prof Tim Coltman

Dean
Waikato Management School
Hamilton

Professor Coltman became Dean of Waikato Management School in January 2017. He has a PhD in Strategic Management from the Australian Graduate School of Management (awarded by both the University of Sydney and UNSW) with a thesis addressing the relationship between customer relationship management and
firm performance. Before taking up his position as Dean, he was Director Institute for Innovation in Business and Social Research and Professor, School of Management, and Operations & Marketing at the University of Wollongong. He is currently engaged in pioneering research where the Australian Research
Council, DHL, Ports Australia and BlueScope Steel have awarded him over $13 million in research funding. Professor Coltman’s research and teaching interests are in the areas of business transformation and technology innovation. Tim has more than 15 years industry experience, having worked as a senior
project manager within private consultancy, government and higher education.

Assoc Prof Eva Collins

Associate Dean - Research
Waikato Management School
Hamilton

Eva Collins is Associate Professor of Strategy at the University of Waikato, Associate Dean of Research at Waikato Management School, Chair of the University's Environmental Sustainability Committee and a recent (2016-2017) Visiting Fellow at Cambridge University in the U.K. Her research is focused on the tensions and paradoxes related to management and sustainability. She is a key researcher on a $2.8 million research programme funded by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE), which is entitled, 'People, Cities and Nature: Restoring indigenous nature in urban environments'.