Conference- Events

Clarissa Hirst is the Financial Services Council’s (FSC’s) Head of Content, Communications and Marketing, leading the Council’s consumer strategy, diversity and inclusion initiatives and research programme. She’s passionate about industry collaboration, driving impactful initiatives, breaking down jargon, financial literacy, and empowering wāhine to create the lives they love by becoming financially confident.

Richard is the Chief Executive Officer of the Financial Services Council – New Zealand. He has extensive experience in leading and transforming Industry Associations, Life Insurance manufacturers and Financial Advice businesses, having held senior leadership roles in all sectors over the past 16 years. Organisations include Sovereign Assurance, ANZ Banking Group, Association of Financial Advisers and ING Richard is known as a community builder, skilfully engaging and influencing a diverse range of stakeholders to create common purpose, connection and enable collaboration.

Richard holds an MBA from the Macquarie Graduate School of Management, a Bachelor of Arts and Diploma of Education from Macquarie University and recently completed the Denison Miller Senior Executive leadership program as well as the innovative ‘Rethinking Leadership’ program with the Hunger Project in India.

Dr Stephen Child, Chief Medical Officer, provides clinical oversight and is responsible for health technology assessment at Southern Cross Health Society. A Canadian-trained General Physician with a respiratory interest, he continues weekly private clinics and is a consultant with the Department of General Medicine at Auckland DHB.

Stephen is a member of the Medical Council of New Zealand (Council) and previous roles have included Chair of the New Zealand Medical Association, DHB National Workforce Strategy Group member, the Minister of Health’s Medical Training Board member, Northern Clinical Training Network Board member, and Health Workforce New Zealand Clinical Advisor.

A recipient of the NZMA 2018 Fellowship award, Stephen continues to make an impact in the health sector. He is particularly committed to exploring the relationship between public and private healthcare with an interest in how technology will continue to change the delivery and practice of medicine.

Mitchell Pham is a director of CodeHQ (formerly Augen) in New Zealand and Vietnam, and cofounder of the Kiwi Connection Tech Hub – a platform for NZ technology businesses to accelerate presence & engagement in South East Asia. He has nearly three decades of experience in information management, software products & services, sales & marketing, international operations, strategy development, collaborative partnerships and business growth through digital innovation. He now shares his experience as a governance and strategy advisor to other businesses.

In government, industry and community spaces, Mitchell serves as the chair of the Digital Council for Aotearoa NZ, NZTech, FinTechNZ, the NZ Asia Institute and the ASEAN Business Alliance. He is an honorary advisor at the Asia New Zealand Foundation, Entrepreneur-In-Residence at the University of Auckland Business School, trustee of the Auckland Refugee Family Trust and board member of HOST International NZ.

Internationally, Mitchell is a member of the Strategic Alliance Vietnamese Ventures International network and an executive of the global Vietnamese diaspora business network. He is recognised in leadership as a World Class New Zealander by KEA, an Asia 21 Fellow and Global Council Member of the Asia Society, and a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum.

Specialising in investment, funds and savings products, Mike has a specific emphasis on workplace savings, KiwiSaver and superannuation and related financial services regulation.

He acts for the trustees, managers and sponsors of major workplace savings and KiwiSaver schemes throughout New Zealand, as well as for trustee corporations.

Mike has a strong interest in law reform and policy issues and in recent years he has been instrumental in a number of workplace savings and KiwiSaver legislative reforms, industry exemptions and compliance cost saving initiatives. He was a member of the Government-appointed Savings Product Working Group whose recommendations led to the KiwiSaver legislation.

Formerly a Chairman of ASFONZ (later Workplace Savings NZ) and a long-standing Workplace Savings NZ Councillor, Mike is now on a range of Financial Services Council Committees and Working Groups, including the KiwiSaver and Investments Committee and the Workplace Savings Committee.

He is recognised as a Band 1 lawyer by Chambers Asia Pacific 2022 and as a leading individual by Legal 500 Asia Pacific 2022.

Maria is a Senior Associate in the financial services team at MinterEllisonRuddWatts. She has particular expertise in financial services regulation, and advises on a range of issues related to offering securities and operating financial services or financial advisory businesses in New Zealand.

Maria started her legal career with another top tier New Zealand law firm, before working in offshore funds and banking for Babbé, a Guernsey law firm.

Maria works extensively with retail and wholesale fund managers, trustee companies, insurers, and other major financial institutions. She also supports numerous overseas clients with their regulatory obligations (including in relation to applicable exemptions) under New Zealand financial services law. Maria advises on all aspects of the Financial Markets Conduct Act (FMCA) and the suite of financial services legislation generally. Her FMCA expertise includes discretionary investment management services, managed investment schemes, and the financial advice regime under the Act. In addition, Maria advises clients on the regulation of cryptocurrencies in New Zealand and has assisted with a number of merger and acquisition transactions involving insurance entities. Her work involves regular engagement with the Financial Markets Authority (FMA) and Ministry for Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE).

Ranked as a Rising Star in Investment Funds by The Legal 500 Asia Pacific, Maria is an expert in her field and an active contributor to thought leadership, frequently writing articles for insurance publications such as Cover to Cover (the firm’s insurance legal industry magazine) and Covernote (an online insurance magazine).

Christian has been with Te Putea Matua since 2019. Prior to his appointment as Deputy Governor/General Manager Financial Stability Group, Christian was the Assistant Governor and General Manager of Economics, Financial Markets and Banking.

Christian was also part of the team that established Harbour Asset Management, which was awarded Morningstar New Zealand Fund Manager of the Year in 2014, 2016 and 2017.

Before this, Christian spent 9 years at the Bank of England, where he held senior positions including Private Secretary to the Deputy Governor, Chief Manager of Sterling Markets and Head of Market Intelligence.

Christian graduated from the University of Canterbury with a Master of Commerce (Hons) majoring in Economics.

Genevieve Mora, 26 spent most of her teenage years battling mental illness. She is now a proud survivor and has made it her mission to offer hope to those fighting mental illness. Genevieve co-founded Voices of Hope and through this uses her lived experience to show people that recovery is possible and that there is no shame in having a mental illness.

With a straight down the middle approach, Heather du Plessis-Allan Drive on Newstalk ZB delivers the very latest news and views to New Zealanders as they wrap up their day.

Assertive, direct and opinionated, Heather is well respected by leading news makers, business leaders and political insiders. As well as setting the news agenda, this show has a major focus on local and international business, ensuring our listeners are engaged and informed. Heather du Plessis-Allan is a driving force at the centre of New Zealand’s biggest newsroom and number one radio station.

John is an advocate for responsible investment and for greater transparency around investment products. He is CEO (and co-founder) of Pathfinder Asset Management, a boutique fund manager specialising in ethical investment. Pathfinder’s funds include ESG-focused water, global equity and global property strategies.

John is a trustee of Men’s Health Trust NZ and a director of Punakaiki Fund Limited (a venture capital investor in NZ growth companies). He is also a member of the Government’s Code Working Group which is designing a new code of conduct for financial advice.

Paul is responsible for the FMA’s strategy and approach to investment management providers and products, including KiwiSaver. His experience includes Chief Operations Officer at PIE Funds, positions in the investment and communications teams at the New Zealand Superannuation Fund, and communications management roles at Macquarie Group, SKYCITY and Westpac.

B.Com (Econ), BCA Hons (Econ), MSc (Econ)

Samantha first arrived in New Zealand at the age of 7 with her parents and sister from the UK. She is a dual New Zealand / UK national. She grew up in Christchurch and attended Christchurch Girls’ High School before attending the University of Canterbury (B.Com (Econ) 1987) and Victoria University of Wellington (BCA. Hons (Econ) 1988).

She joined the Reserve Bank of New Zealand as an economist in 1988. In 1993 she moved to London to attend the London School of Economics where she was awarded an MSc in Economics. In 1995 she joined the Financial Services Authority in London (now the Financial Conduct Authority) which was responsible for the prudential and conduct of business regulation of the UK financial markets. She served successively as an Economist, a Supervisor in the Markets and Exchanges Division and a Manager in Conduct of Business Regulation.

Between 2005 and 2009, Samantha was a Director at the London Investment Banking Association where she worked on behalf of investment banks to develop and implement strategic advocacy programmes with the UK, EU and other national governments and national and international regulatory bodies. In 2009 Samantha took her regulatory knowledge and skills from the financial to the legal sector when she was appointed as an Executive Director at the Solicitors Regulation Authority with responsibility for leading the SRA’s work to transform the regulation of solicitors. This was the most significant element of the transformation of the legal services market in England and Wales enabled by the UK Legal Services Act 2007. It included implementing a new regulatory regime allowing for non-lawyer investment into, and ownership and control of law firms.

2014 saw Samantha return to financial services when she was appointed Chief Executive of the Gibraltar Financial Services Commission. Samantha led the prudential and conduct regulation of a complex financial services sector that primarily exports financial services and which represents around 25% of Gibraltar’s economy.

This period was characterised by the significant global and EU regulatory reform in the wake of the 2007/08 financial crisis. Between 2014 and 2019 the GFSC secured the confidence of governments and regulators in key export markets that Gibraltar was implementing these reforms in substance as well as form.

During this period the Commission also developed and implemented the first comprehensive international regulatory regime for firms using distributed ledger technology to hold and transfer value. These successes required strong connections with regulators in other markets, particularly in the UK and Europe but also further afield. They also saw the Commission expand substantially in terms of staffing and capability.

Between 2018 and 2019 Samantha, with the support and approval of the Gibraltar Financial Services Commission’s Board, served as a member of PwC (UK)’s Public Interest Body, responsible for independent oversight of PwC (UK)’s approach to protecting the public interest in its activities in the UK economy. Samantha stood down from this body on her appointment as Chief Executive of the Business Banking Resolution Service (BBRS) in November 2019.

As CEO of the BBRS, Samantha was appointed to lead the establishment of a non-statutory alternative dispute resolution scheme for banks and their larger SME customers. The scheme was a response to concerns, which began to surface as a result of the financial crisis, over the way banks had treated their SME customers. Because the scheme did not have statutory backing, the task involved complex negotiations with banks and the SME sector, and attracted close political and regulatory scrutiny. The scheme was launched in February 2021 with business body and political cross-party support in all nations of the UK. Having led the establishment of the BBRS, Samantha stood down to take a planned break, including taking time to pursue her interest in theatre.

When not regulating financial and professional services Samantha tries to find time for her passion for the theatre. Wherever in the world she has lived and worked, she has involved herself with theatre groups, acting, producing, governance and many other of the wide variety of roles needed to support live theatre. In her younger years, this included Wellington and Canterbury Repertory theatres. Samantha has three children who are at university in the UK.

Tracey Cross has significant experience in funds management, superannuation law, corporate governance and financial services regulation. She acts for a wide variety of significant financial institutions and superannuation schemes and a number of overseas issuers offering their funds into New Zealand.

Tracey's experience includes scheme establishment, compliance, interpretation of trust deeds, risk management, and advice on powers, authorities and discretions.

Tracey has been involved with KiwiSaver since its inception and has established many of the current KiwiSaver schemes. She actively advises providers and employees of their KiwiSaver obligations, and advises providers and advisor groups on compliance and disclosure requirements under the Financial Adviser regime.

Tracey routinely advises on regulatory compliance and disclosure for funds and trans-Tasman mutual recognition and has been involved in the establishment of compliance plans and the identification of individual statutory obligations across the complete business of many clients.

Laura holds the dual roles of General Counsel and Chief Risk Officer for Southern Cross Health Society.

In her General Counsel role, she provides legal counsel to the society’s board of directors and senior management and leads the legal and governance team that advises on, among other areas, corporate governance, privacy law, insurance and financial services law and commercial transactions. In her Chief Risk Officer role, she leads the Risk and Compliance Management teams, which oversee the Society’s risk governance framework and risk appetite, and ensures all risks generated by the it’s businesses are measured, reviewed and monitored on an ongoing basis.
Prior to working at the Society, Laura has had a career within financial services both in New Zealand and the UK, having held the roles of: Head of Risk, Compliance and Conduct for Westpac’s Institutional, Business and Commercial bank; General Counsel and Head of Risk for Flexigroup (an ASX registered company); Head of Legal for Latitude Financial Services and GE Capital; Lawyer and Director at Royal Bank of Scotland and ABN AMRO Bank; Legal Counsel at Barclays Bank; Senior Corporate Solicitor at NY law firm Kaye Scholer, and Solicitor at DLA Phillips Fox.
Laura lives in Auckland with her family, dogs and cat and is seen out of office hours on sidelines of her kids’ sports, as well as baking, beaching and generally getting outdoors.

Far far away, behind the word mountains, far from the countries Vokalia and Consonantia, there live the blind texts. Separated they live in Bookmarksgrove right at the coast of the Semantics, a large language ocean.

Even the all-powerful Pointing has no control about the blind texts it is an almost unorthographic life One day however a small line of blind text by the name of Lorem Ipsum decided to leave for the far World of Grammar.

Hon. Grant Robertson studied politics at Otago, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts with Honours in 1995. At university he was the President of the Otago University Students’ Association and became 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 then posted to the United Nations in New York, working on global environment and development issues.

On his return to New Zealand, Grant became an advisor to former Prime Minister Helen Clark. Following this, he took a business development role with the University of Otago, working with researchers, investors and businesses to develop and commercialise the university’s world-leading research.

In Opposition, Grant held a range of portfolios, including Finance from 2014 to 2017. After the 2017 election, Grant was appointed Minister of Finance, Minister for Sport and Recreation, and Associate Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage.

Grant also served as Deputy Prime Minister under Jacinda Ardern in the 2020 Labour Government. He is currently the Minister of Finance, Minister for Sport and Recreation, and Leader of the House.

Tim is a leading commercial lawyer, who established Chapman Tripp’s Financial Services team.

Tim is sought after for his commercial and practical expertise, problem solving abilities, and in-depth legal and regulatory knowledge, particularly in the financial services, investment products, insurance and banking sectors. He has a broad range of experience, including commercial law, licensing, regulatory compliance, mergers and acquisitions, anti-money laundering (AML), overseas investment, and restructurings.

He was instrumental in developing many of the country’s largest KiwiSaver schemes and other investment funds, including cash and term PIE products for the banking market, which collectively raised over $20b. As part of his broad-ranging commercial and financial services practice, Tim advises insurers, fund managers, intermediaries, and other financial service providers on responding to law reform, and their licensing and compliance programmes, covering a range of legislation including the Financial Markets Conduct Act, Financial Markets (Conduct of Institutions) Amendment Act, Insurance (Prudential Supervision) Act, AML legislation, Overseas Investment Act, Financial Service Providers legislation, CCCFA, trans-Tasman mutual recognition regime, Non-bank Deposit Takers legislation, and the Companies Act.

Tim is recognised as a Band 1 financial services lawyer by Chambers Asia Pacific 2023 and as a leading individual by Legal 500 Asia Pacific 2023. He is also listed in EuroMoney Experts Guide to the World’s Leading Banking Finance and Transactional Lawyers as one of the outstanding investment funds practitioners, and in Best Lawyers 2020 as a leading mutual funds lawyer.

David is experienced in leading and consulting marketing and corporate communications, specialising in growing capability for organisations.

He has worked in the financial services industry for over 20 years in both government and private sector roles in the UK, US, EU and more recently in New Zealand at the Financial Services Council.

Originally an engineer, David is a Chartered Marketer, holds a master's degree in Strategic Marketing and recently graduated with a master's degree in Wine Science and Business from the University of Auckland.

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Kristina has been in the legal and compliance sectors for over 15 years in New Zealand and in the UK. First as a private practice solicitor, then developing and leading risk and compliance teams before returning to NZ.

Akahu is an open finance platform, focused on New Zealand.  Akahu manages data integrations with banks and other financial institutions, and bundles those integrations into an API for developers. Akahu’s purpose is to empower Kiwi consumers to gracefully control and leverage their data.

Josh is the CEO of Akahu. He was previously co-founder and CEO of Snowball Effect, and worked at WeWork and Bell Gully.

Nicola Willis is a List MP based in Wellington, having entered Parliament in April 2018, and being re-elected in October 2020. She is currently National’s Deputy Leader, Spokesperson for Finance, and Social Investment. She is a member of Parliament’s Finance and Expenditure Select Committee and the Intelligence and Security Select Committee, and has previously served on the Environment Select Committee, the Education and Workforce Select Committee, and the Regulations Review Select Committee.

Prior to becoming an MP Nicola held a number of senior management roles at New Zealand dairy co-operative Fonterra. Her work at Fonterra included leadership of the business’s global trade strategy team, permanent membership of the global incident management team, operational management of Fonterra-owned farms and work on a number of major projects alongside Fonterra’s global customers, manufacturing teams and farmer shareholders. Nicola also served on the boards of Export NZ and policy think-tank the New Zealand Initiative.

Nicola was a senior advisor to Prime Minister John Key during his first term in Government, having been a member of his winning 2008 campaign team, a senior advisor during his time as Leader of the Opposition and a researcher for then opposition education spokesperson Bill English.

She has also worked in a number of small businesses including jobs selling shoes, clothes and bagels.

Nicola is a proud graduate of Victoria University of Wellington with a first-class honours degree in English literature. She was a successful university debater, captaining teams and competing around the world. She grew up in Wellington, and today she lives there with her husband Duncan and their four children aged 6, 9, 10, 12.

Jackie leads our award-winning Legal, Corporate Governance and Regulatory Affairs teams, who are passionate about AIA’s operating philosophy of ‘doing the right thing, in the right way’. Jackie joined AIA NZ in 2017 and was instrumental in the acquisition and integration of the Sovereign business and the portfolio transfer of the ex-AIA International Ltd NZ Branch business into AIA NZ. Prior to joining AIA, Jackie spent over ten years as Principal Legal Counsel at Barclays Bank / Absa Bank in South Africa and the UAE and held a number of legal roles in London with a dual qualification to practice law both in New Zealand and the United Kingdom.

Jack Tame is the host of TVNZ’s Q+A and Saturday Mornings on Newstalk ZB. He previously spent five years as TVNZ’s correspondent in the United States. He enjoys reading, test cricket, and Kanye West’s first seven albums.

Trecia has had over 35 years experience in financial services and has been actively working with financial advisers and their businesses . Her career has spanned roles at various insurance companies and now is working with a Financial Advice Provider - NZFSG. Her previous roles has enabled her to build a reputation as one of the most competent coaches/ leaders in her field. Her ability to develop teams, help advisers to build sustainable businesses and build regulatory support programmes are some of her many strengths. Trecia has a warm and empathic style and has the ability to simplify concepts and processes so that advisers feel comfortable embracing new ideas and putting them into practice.

At ANZ Investments my team and I are totally committed to supporting authorised financial advisers by providing products and solutions that are simple and transparent, independently rated, have competitive fee structures and provide access to specialist investment managers. 

I joined the financial services industry in 1990 and my passion to ensure all New Zealanders receive high quality financial advice and appropriate solutions is unwavering. 

I lead a highly specialised sales team who have strong adviser relationships built on trust, honesty, and mutual respect. 

Daniel has been CEO of Strategi Compliance and Strategi Institute for over three years.  He is passionate about growing people and businesses, implementing winning strategies and finding solutions to issues which has helped him lead Strategi to become a leading provider of training and compliance to the financial services sector. 