KEYNOTE SPEAKER

Jan Zijderveld

Chief Executive Officer, Avon Products, Inc

Director since 2018

Jan Zijderveld is Chief Executive Officer and a director of Avon Products, Inc., a company that has empowered and inspired women for 130 years. Mr. Zijderveld joined the company in February 2018. He is responsible for driving new long term growth initiatives, developing earnings opportunities for women and advancing Avon as the world’s premier direct seller of quality beauty products.

Mr. Zijderveld, previously served 30 years with Unilever N.V./PLC, where he rose to a member of the Executive Committee and President of Unilever’s $14 billion European business in 2011. In this role, he oversaw operations in 34 countries and 25,000 employees, effectively returning the business to growth and improved profitability during significantly challenging market conditions.

Prior to that, he served as Executive Vice President in South East Asia and Australasia and Non-Executive Chairman of Unilever’s listed Indonesian business from 2008-2011.

In earlier roles, he served as CEO of Unilever, Middle East and North Africa (MENA) from 2007-2008 and Chairman of Arabia and Iran within Unilever MENA from 2004-2007, after serving in a number of leadership positions across Europe, Australia and New Zealand in General Management, marketing, sales and distribution.

Panelists

Associate Professor Peter Sun - Moderator Panel Discussion

Co-director of Leadership Unit - New Zealand Institute for Business Research, University of Waikato

Associate Professor Peter Sun has degrees in mechanical and industrial engineering. He has over 15 years' experience working on a variety of projects. He worked for Coopers and Lybrand (now PWC), Unilever, and MAS Holdings, and his most recent assignment was the establishment of a 1000 acre apparel city in VIZAG, India. He completed his PhD in organisational learning in 2006 and moved into academia in June 2007.

Peter is currently Director of the Centre for Enterprise and Leadership, as well as a trustee for the Community & Enterprise Leadership Foundation. Previously he was the Associate Dean of Enterprise for Waikato Management School, where he oversaw all corporate and executive education programmes (ie. the Waikato MBA, PGDipMgtSt, and all customised corporate programmes).

Peter facilitates workshops for organisations, and has consulted for companies such as Fonterra, Brandix (India, and in Sri Lanka), and Sri Lanka Insurance Ltd etc. His expertise is in leadership, knowledge management, and organisational learning, and he actively researches and publishes in these areas. His leadership research lies in the area of transformational and servant leadership, at both senior and middle management, and the influence of leadership on organisational learning and knowledge management.

Adele Rose

Chief Executive Officer, 3R Group Ltd.

Adele is the Chief Executive of 3R Group Ltd. 3R’s purpose is to combine imagination and science to repurpose waste. This is achieved by designing great product stewardship programmes that accelerate the circular economy.

Adele has over 12-years management experience and nine years directly related to the development of waste solutions for environmental and economic benefit across a range of industries.

Adele is an effective collaborator and enjoys working with industry to develop solutions to shared waste stream problems and bringing those solutions back into a product stewardship framework which is practical and meaningful for the funders and the user’s right through the value chain

Andrew Smith

Chief Executive Officer

Prolife Foods

Andrew Smith has 10 years as CEO of Prolife Foods, a Hamilton based $300m turnover business, trading in NZ, Australia and 16 other countries.

He has strong governance experience. Not only as Director of Prolife Foods subsidiaries, but also as Director of AS Wilcox (potatoes / onions), OOB Foods (organic berries / ice-cream) and as an advisor to Maison Therese (pickles / relishes).

Andrew has a stellar International and NZ FMCG career. Starting in the UK / Ireland with P&G. He has worked for Unilever in Australia / NZ; 10 years with NZ Dairy Board / Fonterra in NZ and Global marketing / strategy / general management roles.

Professor Brad Jackson

Director of the Policy Innovation Hub, Griffiths Business School.

Professor Brad Jackson is the Director of the Policy Innovation Hub and Professor of Social Innovation within the Griffith Business School. The Policy Innovation Hub promotes and facilitates close collaboration between Griffith University researchers, students and partners in industry, government and the community to create value for the residents and communities of Queensland, Australia and the Asia-Pacific region.

Prior to joining Griffith in March 2018, Brad was Professor of Public and Community Leadership at Victoria University of Wellington where he was the former Head of School of Government and Head of School of Management. At the University of Auckland Business School, he was Co-Director of the New Zealand Leadership Institute and the Fletcher Building Education Trust Chair in Leadership.

Jackson has published six books—Management Gurus and Management Fashions, The Hero Manager, Organisational Behaviour in New Zealand, A Very Short, Fairly Interesting and Reasonably Cheap Book About Studying Leadership, Demystifying Business Celebrity and Revitalising Leadership. He has also co-edited the Sage Handbook of Leadership and Major Works in Leadership. He is a former co-editor of the journal, Leadership, and the former Vice-Chair of the Akina Foundation and the International Leadership Association.

Brad’s current research explores the inter-relationship between leadership and governance practices in promoting and sustaining social innovation and the application of place-based approaches to foster cross-sectoral leadership development and education.

Damon Kelly

Chief Executive Officer
Enlighten Designs

A visionary start-up entrepreneur, Damon Kelly bootstrapped Enlighten Designs 19 years ago in a caravan in his parents’ backyard, fresh after graduation from Waikato University. The company was founded on a passion for people and to bring customer-centric, exceptionally designed, and innovative technologies from the shores of New Zealand to the rest of the world.

Enlighten Designs engages a wide spectrum of clients from local New Zealand start-ups to multinational billion dollar organizations including Air New Zealand, Microsoft, Sky, Downer and LIC. Enlighten Designs’ mission is to actualise exceptional client value through digital experiences that include websites, apps, digital workspaces, business intelligence solutions, and custom development projects. Through their dedicated and passionate team, Enlighten Designs has made the Deloitte Asia Pacific Fast 500 numerous times and has received 9 Microsoft Partner Awards.

Derek Wright

Chief Executive (Interim), Waikato District Health Board

Derek has worked in mental health for over 40 years; he commenced his nursing training in Scotland in 1975. He is a Registered Mental Health Nurse and a Registered General Nurse.

Worked in Scotland as a clinician, then moved to Newcastle in the North East of England as a Senior Nurse, then became a General Manager. Moved to New Zealand in 1992 and became the General Manager at Waitemata, DHB, during this time he also lead the project to close Carrington Hospital.
Was seconded to the Mental Health Commission and developed the working paper that became the Mental Health Commissions Blueprint.

In 2002 he was appointed as the first Regional Director for the Northern Region. This position overviewed mental health and addictions services in the four DHBs.

Derek moved to Adelaide in 2007 to become the Director of Mental Health Operations for South Australia where he led the States significant mental health reform process.

Returned to New Zealand in 2012 and took up the role of CEO for Recovery Solutions, a medium sized NGO.

In early 2016 Derek was appointed Executive Director Mental Health & Addictions services at Waikato DHB.

In October 2017, Derek became the Interim Chief Executive for Waikato DHB. Derek has been involved at a national level in both New Zealand & Australia.

Jan Zijderveld

Chief Executive Officer, Avon Products, Inc

Jan Zijderveld is the Chief Executive Officer and a Director of Avon Products, Inc., a company that has empowered and inspired women for 130 years. Mr. Zijderveld joined the company in February 2018. Formerly, Jan served 30 years with Unilever N.V./PLC, where he rose to a member of the Executive Committee and President of Unilever’s $14 billion European business in 2011. In this role, he oversaw operations in 34 countries and 25,000 employees, effectively returning the business to growth and improved profitability during significantly challenging market conditions.

In 2018 Jan received a Distinguished Alumni Award for his achievements during a long career at Unilever and his continued association as an alumnus of The University of Waikato.

Laurent Sylvestre

Chief People and Culture Officer, Beca

Laurent Sylvestre joined Beca in 2009 as General Manager HR for Beca Infrastructure Ltd, where he first established a 'people review' process to identify and nurture top talent. He became General Manager People & Culture for the New Zealand business in 2013 and spent the next 3 years leading the transformation of Beca's NZ HR team into People & Culture as strategic business partners. He also implemented tools for leaders to develop their self-awareness and their capability to create a culture where all our people are able to be their best and now oversees. In 2016 he was appointed Chief P&C Officer and joined Beca’s Executive Leadership Team.

Laurent is passionate about developing a high performance culture and believes that investing in people is vital for our teams' engagement and experience as well as the value and experience we provide our clients. His passion and contribution was recognised when he was recently named 'HR Generalist of the Year' in the Human Resources Institute of New Zealand's annual awards for excellence and outstanding achievement within the HR community.