Empower & Elevate - Women in Finance Leadership Series: Leading Change

Speakers: 

Hon. Nicola Grigg (Welcome)
Minister for Women

Nicola Grigg is the Minister of State for Trade, Minister for Women, and Associate Minister of Agriculture (Horticulture). Nicola has been the MP for Selwyn since 2020.

She was born and raised on the family sheep and beef farm in Mt Somers, and studied at the New Zealand Broadcasting School, graduating with a Degree in Broadcast Communications and Diplomas in Television and Radio News.

She has worked as a reporter and newsreader and was a press secretary for Sir Bill English during his tenure as Minister of Finance, and Prime Minister. Following that, Nicola worked with a wide range of agri-businesses in export marketing and business development. 

Emma McLean (Facilitator)
Founder & Chief Executive Officer, Works for Everyone

Emma Mclean is the mother of three teenagers and founder of Works for Everyone, a working parent consultancy. She founded her business in 2019 following a 20-year career in corporate strategy where she experienced first-hand how hard it was to have a career and a family. Inspired by this, her business developed a suite of services for corporates that are all about putting a care wrap around parents during the hardest parts of their career.

In 2023 she launched her successful podcast “How to Smash the Motherhood Penalty” where she talks to humans who are actively working to change the system that creates financial penalties that only mothers pay. And in 2024 she launched the first NZ Part Time Power List – to shine a light on those senior roles in NZ that are career building, not side stepping. 

Marika Eastwick-Field
Board Member & Partner - Dispute Resolution & Insurance, Russell McVeagh

Marika has been on the Russell McVeagh Board for the last 3 years, is Co-Chair of the firm's D&I committee, and has been a partner at the firm since 2016.

She specialises in commercial litigation, focusing on complex commercial disputes. Her expertise spans contentious and advisory roles in insurance, mergers and acquisitions disputes, property and leasing disputes, capital markets and financial services, and company law. She represents clients in courts, arbitrations, and various dispute resolution forums, leveraging her contentious experience to provide effective risk mitigation advice during transactions. She is recognised for her commercial and strategic approach and valued for her ability to prevent and efficiently resolve issues for her clients. 

Mika Austin
General Manager, People & Culture, NZ Super Fund

Mika is an experienced senior executive, with over 10 years’ experience as General Manager of People & Culture at the Guardians of New Zealand Superannuation (NZ Super Fund). Prior to joining the Fund, she was a commercial litigator for 12 years, specialising in complex banking, antitrust and tax avoidance cases at a top tier corporate law firm and at the Financial Services Authority in London.

Mika and her team are responsible for delivering the people and culture agenda at the NZ Super Fund, including people insights, talent acquisition, learning, development and succession planning, remuneration and benefits, engagement, wellbeing, and people operations throughout the employee lifecycle. She sits on the Guardian’s Executive team and has served on its Risk Committee. She was appointed as Education Kaihautū (leader) for NEXT Foundation, a strategic philanthropic fund committed to delivering transformational education and environmental projects, where she helped to deliver digital literacy programmes to primary school children. Outside the ‘day job’ she is an experienced public speaker and performer, appearing in multiple plays and short films both nationally and internationally. She is a member of the Global Women network. She has an LLB/BA from the University of Auckland.

Steve Jurkovich
Chief Executive Officer, Kiwibank

Steve joined Kiwibank in July 2018 as Chief Executive. He graduated from Otago University with a Bachelor of Law and completed his MBA at the University of Sydney. With over 20 years of banking experience in Australia and New Zealand, Steve’s career to date has included senior and executive leadership positions with accountabilities across Retail, Corporate, Commercial and Rural Banking and Legal with New Zealand’s largest banks.

He is a Director of the Banking Ombudsman Scheme and a former Chair of the NZ Bankers Association during the Covid pandemic.  He’s passionate about business and business leaders delivering performance through a Purpose led approach and having some fun doing it. He is also a founding trustee of the Tania Dalton Foundation whose purpose is to help young women achieve their epic potential.  

Terms and Conditions for the event here.