Welcoming our newest members for July 2026 – an inspiring collective of wāhine leading with purpose, challenging boundaries, and creating meaningful change across sectors, disciplines, and communities.
We are delighted to welcome them into the Global Women whānau. Each brings a powerful perspective, bold ideas, and a commitment to making a lasting impact – shaping conversations, driving innovation, and helping accelerate prosperity and transform the future of Aotearoa.
Becki Butler
Becki Butler is a CEO, independent director, and systems-thinking leader with extensive experience across fintech, retail, and purpose-led organisations. Her leadership is defined by a commitment to reimagining how businesses create value, balancing commercial performance with equity, sustainability, and long-term societal impact.
Linda Clark
Linda Clark is a barrister and former award-winning political journalist and broadcaster, bringing a rare combination of legal expertise, media leadership, and public sector insight. Her leadership is characterised by sharp analytical thinking, strategic judgement, and the ability to operate at the centre of New Zealand’s most complex legal, regulatory, and political environments.
Kate Tulp
Kate Tulp is an accomplished technology leader with more than 20 years of experience across IT, telecommunications, and enterprise transformation. As New Zealand Country Director for ServiceNow, she leads the organisation’s strategy, growth, and customer success, supporting businesses and government organisations to transform how they operate and unlock new levels of productivity through technology.
Nicola Riordan
Nicola Riordan is a highly experienced non-executive director and technology leader with more than two decades of experience building, scaling, and exiting high-growth technology companies across Europe, Israel, and Australasia, before transitioning into a full governance career.
Vanessa Rayner
Vanessa is a senior executive with more than 20 years of leadership experience across central banking, financial markets, financial stability, risk management, enterprise strategy and transformation in New Zealand and Australia in significant financial institutions. Vanessa is a recognised expert in financial markets and central banking within the public and private sectors.
Anna Palairet
As Chief Operating Officer, Anna Palairet holds one of the most significant leadership roles in the Co-op. Her remit spans all New Zealand manufacturing sites, global supply chain operations, global engineering, technical excellence, and global safety, quality and regulatory teams alongside her role as Chair of Kotahi.
Kate Armstrong
Kate is currently the Chair of the Board Audit and Risk Committee for Vero Insurance NZ, Chair of the Risk Committee, TSB NZ, Trustee, New Zealand Housing Foundation, and Chair of the Risk & Assurance Committee of Inland Revenue NZ. These governance roles reflect Kate’s expertise in risk, legal and compliance in financial services.
Lauren Shearer
Lauren Shearer is a recognised leader in executive search, serving as a Partner at Hobson Leavy, one of New Zealand’s leading executive search firms. In this role, she advises boards, and chief executives on the appointment of CEOs, C-suite executives and non-executive directors, helping organisations secure the leadership capability required to drive performance, growth and long-term impact.
Nicola O’Rourke
Nicola O’Rourke is a commercially astute and purpose-driven leader with more than 20 years of executive experience across New Zealand’s food, beverage, and agribusiness sectors. Her career spans blue-chip multinationals, private equity-backed businesses, and founder-led start-ups, giving her a rare breadth of perspective that she brings to leadership.
Joelle Grace
Joelle Grace is a Partner at PwC Legal and a highly experienced corporate and commercial lawyer. Joelle also leads and contributes beyond her core legal role, including driving the South Island delivery of PwC’s Women in Business networking events for women founders and senior leaders, facilitating a recent panel on capital raising, and supporting related events in Wellington and Auckland.
Becky White
Becky White has held senior leadership roles in intellectual property for over two decades, across private practice, global corporates, and the New Zealand public service – a range very few IP leaders anywhere can claim. In 2026, she takes up a newly created global Director of Intellectual Property role at Kerry Group in Ireland, recruited directly out of New Zealand into a worldwide mandate.
Carol Brown
Carol Brown is a senior technology leader, board governor, and certified leadership coach dedicated to driving purposeful innovation and empowering the next generation of leaders. As the Country Manager for Databricks New Zealand, Carol partners with organisations across the country to unlock the power of data and AI, helping Kiwi businesses scale, transform, and compete on the global stage
Morna MacGillivray
Morna MacGillivray is Founder and CEO of Revolutionary Woman Global (RWG), a matriarchal publishing house and leadership dojo for women building futures that work for all beings, and Executive Producer of Matriarchs.ai. Her career is a three-decade inquiry into the question: how do we co-create a world that works for all?