Governance for Ethnic Communities

Prabha Ravi is an independent director, management consultant, facilitator, assessor, coach, and a mentor. She sits on various local, national, and international Not- for- Profit boards. She is currently the Co-Chair of Community Governance Aotearoa. She was the establishment chair of the HVDHB Consumer Council for 2.5 years. She is regularly invited as a guest/panel speaker for various conference, events and festivals across NZ and overseas.

In her professional career, she has held many senior management roles in both public and private organisations.

She is the founder, producer, director and choreographer of Natraj School of Dance, a well-established and reputed Indian classical dance school based in Lower Hutt since 1999.

She has been recognised with several national, regional and community awards including the Queen Services Medal by the NZ government in 2017, Hutt City Mayoral Civic Honour Awards for Cultural Affairs and Community Group in 2011 for her contribution to dance and ethnic communities and more recently a special commemoration Award by Indian Newslink at their business awards for leadership qualities and management experience. She was a Finalist for Wellingtonian of the Year Award in 2016 for Education and is a Justice of Peace.

She also has a strong background and experience in community development with a special interest in raising the profile and supporting very talented ethnic women and youth from diverse backgrounds sitting around the board table.

She is also an actor, and her first short film “ANU” she acted in as the lead character won the Emerging Talent award and the audience award at the New Zealand International Film Festival 2023 and she won the Best Actor Award at Show me Shorts Festival in NZ in 2023.

Joy Tracey (CA, MBA (Dist), FCGI, CMInstD,) Chartered Fellow Chartered Governance Institute and chartered member Institute of Directors.

Joy is a director and business consultant specialising in governance, business strategy and performance improvement. As a professional Chartered Accountant and CFO she has worked for, and with, Crown Companies, not-for-profit Crown entities, primary sector organisations, commercial manufacturing, technology and service industries and FMCG.

Joy’s background includes commercial chair and director roles across the private and NFP sectors, and governance roles in community, arts and health organisations. She is a director of Accuro Health Insurance and was a previous Chair of Women on Boards New Zealand, NZ Winston Churchill Memorial Trust and Turk’s Poultry Farms Ltd. She has held directorships with Hair & Barber NZ, Governance NZ and is a Trustee of Wellington Rotary Charitable Trust and other Community Trusts. Many of her director roles have also included chair of audit, risk and investment sub committees.

Over the past 17 years, Liz has held advisory and people management roles in different public sector agencies. She is passionate about improving diversity and inclusion in the public sector. Currently, she is the Talent and Governance Lead at the Ministry for Ethnic Communities focusing on increasing the diversity of public sector boards and committees with people from Asia, Middle East, Latin America, or Central Europe and held a similar role previously at the Manatu Wāhine Ministry for Women.

She is currently a Senior Advisory Group member of the Pan-Asian Public Sector Network – a cross agency employee led network. Outside of work, Liz is a volunteer job mentor for skilled migrants and a committee member on the Wellington Branch of the New Zealand Red Cross.

Liz is a speaker at the Governance for Ethics Communities Workshop, speaking on Opening Doors To Governance Roles with Julie Hardaker.

Julie has first class LLB (Hons) and MMS (Hons) from Waikato University. She is a lawyer, governance professional and the former Mayor of Hamilton from 2010 - 2016. She has practiced law for 25 years and operates her own law firm in Hamilton. Julie is Chair of Orchestras Central Trust, deputy chair of Bay Venues Ltd, board member of Common Good Foundation, Chair of Women on Boards, and former chair of the Environmental Protection Authority. Julie holds other government and private sector board roles and is also a member of Global Women.

Julie has a strong interest in women and leadership and is an advocate for gender equality at all levels. She is passionate about supporting women achieve their governance goals and regularly presents at conferences on governance topics, women in leadership and local government.

Cath is a partner at Russell McVeagh Wellington and a corporate lawyer providing advise about commercial and corporate law, including shareholder arrangements and corporate structure. She has experience advising clients across a wide range of industries, including real estate, infrastructure, retail, energy, IT and finance. She also has experience advising central and local government entities on corporate and commercial matters. Cath is registered as a solicitor in England and Wales and has worked in London for many years.