This year’s Women in Governance Award recipients left to right, Sina Cotter-Tait, Caren Rangi ONZM, Evelyn Taumaunu, Jessie Chan and Jo Cribb.
The year keeps getting bigger and better, in what has already been a huge year of achievement for Caren Rangi (ONZM).
Of Cook Islands descent, Caren has been presented with the Pacific Governance Leader at the 2021 Women in Governance Awards, staged at Hilton Auckland on June 10.
She was up against some tough competition, with Meleane Burgess and Sina Cotter-Tait named as finalists for the same category.
With her extensive experience in governance and leadership roles, Caren has most recently taken up the role of Chair of the Arts Council of New Zealand Toi Aotearoa, Creative New Zealand’s governing body.
She is the first Pacific woman to be Chair of Toi Aotearoa, and only the third woman to be appointed to this in the Council’s 55-year history.
During her three-year term, she is tasked with ensuring the arts in this country are in good health.
It is also an ideal opportunity to show how good Pacific people are in governance roles.
A strength during her governance career is that she is a Cook Islander, she says.
If you think about governance being a collective decision-making, Pacific people probably have more experience in that than most communities in the world, and as cultures go, we have been doing governance for years. We just don’t call it that, she says in a recent Stuff article.
Meanwhile, Sina, Director of Engineering Consultancy Collective Success and innovative thinker has been named the Emerging Governance Leader for 2021.
Sina believes Pacific people bring a different and valuable lens to the governance table.
“Pacific people view governance through a lens which is sensitive to under-served communities, because it is personal, and it is close,” she says.
The Minister for Pacific Peoples Hon Aupito William Sio attended the event to present the Pacific Governance Leader Award.
A strong contingent from the Ministry for Pacific Peoples were also present at the event to cheer on the finalists and recipients.
Women in Governance 2021 winners: