Joined the board: May 2020

Role: Operations Manager & Company Secretary 

Length of time with the Network: 6 years 

Leah's background reflects her passion for female personal development, empowerment, and entrepreneurialism. 

With broad-ranging experience in operational and entrepreneurial roles, Leah spent four years running her own business in which she designed and successfully implemented a sustainable female employment and personal development framework for her production facility in Cambodia.

Her experience spans from delivering community-level economic empowerment projects in the developing world, to administrative positions in international corporate settings.

Leah organised NZBWN's "Game Changers 125" event in September 2018, celebrating 125 years since women's suffrage in New Zealand, and has worked as Operations Manager for the network since then. Working closely with our founder Bronwen, she has helped the network register as a social enterprise and the subsequent development of our board. 

For her, the network serves a powerful social purpose in bringing together thousands of Kiwi women to learn, connect and be inspired - and enrich their careers and lives in the process.

Originally from Rangiora, North Canterbury, Leah has lived in the UK since 2004, having previously spent two years in Denmark.  She is married with two young children. Any spare time she can find is spent competing in open water swimming (having completed the Henley Mile, the Bewl Open Water Swim, and Swim Serpentine) and cycling (having cycled 500km around southern Cuba in 2014).

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Joined the board: May 2020

Role: Membership & Engagement Director

Length of time with the network: 3 years

Claire’s career has been defined by her passion to get involved and relish the new. Encouraging businesses to switch from dialup to broadband for Telecom New Zealand was her first big project in marketing nearly 20 years ago. This gave Claire a taste for the transformative power of cutting edge technology – in a geek chic way – and a passion for exploring the art of the possible with projects and people. She’s focused on future-facing opportunities ever since.

Her career naturally lead her to London where she has enjoyed launching start-ups like giffgaff – the 100% online mobile company – and the socially-minded mobile company TPO in the UK and US with Wikipedia’s co-founder Jimmy Wales.

With her own business as a customer experience consultant, her role is often to help her clients reinvent the journey their customers go on with a brand. She’s helped Spurs launch a new football stadium, and Newsflare understand their members who’s user generated content reaches millions.

Claire’s latest project pulls together all her learnings to help support women who're considering setting up a service business themselves through providing practical advice and support via an online course.

Claire’s had her fair share of helpful and supportive contacts along the way. As the network’s Membership Development Director she’s looking forward to giving back all she can to our community.

A Londoner for 15 years, though Claire’s rarely in the country for long. Her well-worn passport shows that while you can take the girl out of Wellington, like all of our members you’ll never take the Kiwi out of her.

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Joined the board: May 2020

Role: PR & External Communications Director 

Length of time with the network: 2 years

Bronwyn is a seasoned Corporate Communications professional, having worked across internal and external communications. 

While her expertise is swayed towards internal communications as a strategic advisor and coach to leaders, including CEOs and executive, most recently she has specialised in Digital Corporate Communications.  Her roles have invovled proactive storytelling and thought leadership, as well as website and social media management.

Working across FTSE 100 companies and professional services she has designed and delivered communications strategies for businesses that engage and motivate, helping explain to colleagues, the press and other stakeholders the value and importance of the work they do.  

Bronwyn is a passionate advocate of our network’s mission to connect other women, having profiled members for our website and monthly newsletter, as well as overseeing our social media. Her ambition is to help build our network to be truly connected across the globe. Her focus will be on managing relationships with our sponsors, and making sure we share our story and mission not only with our members, but as widely as possible. 

Bronwyn’s personal mission is to engage and inspire other women to be strong and succeed through team work, respect and kindness.

Brought up in Dunedin, Bronwyn studied journalism and worked as a regional newspaper reporter before moving to the UK in 2006.  She is a keen runner and hiker, having completed two London marathons and most recently hiked Mt Kilimanjaro. Bronwyn is married with one young daughter and is currently Senior Digital Communications Manager at Centrica. 

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