Cate has a diverse background spanning local government, public policy/law reform, and media. For the past eight years she has been working for the judicial branch of government and is currently Director of Te Tari Toko I Te Tumu Whakawā, The Office of the Chief Justice.
Her 20-year career as a journalist culminated in the editorship of the Sunday Star Times (2003 – 2008).
Following this she was recruited by Sir Geoffrey Palmer to join New Zealand’s independent law reform agency, the Law Commission. Te Aka Matua o te Ture, as a Senior Research and Policy Adviser. During her five years in that role, she was involved in several high-profile law reform projects including; the reform of the law of contempt and the legal and regulatory response to digital media and convergence. The latter project resulted in the enactment of the Harmful Digital Communications Act 2015.
She left the Law Commission in 2013 to take up a role as Chief of Staff for former Labour MP, the Hon Lianne Dalziel, after her election as Mayor of Christchurch.
Cate divides her time between Õtautahi Christchurch where her family is based and her working life in Pōneke, Wellington.
Jenni McManus, a co-founder of the award-winning newspaper The Independent Business Weekly, has more than 40 years’ experience in journalism. She began her career in private radio, moving to NBR in the late 1980s after a brief stint at ATI (now known as AUT) teaching the six-month journalism course. She has also worked in television as part of TV3’s The Ralston Group and as a business commentator on TVNZ’s Breakfast program. Since 2019 she has been the editor of LawNews, a website owned by The Law Association of New Zealand (formerly known as the Auckland District Law Society, or ADLS).
She has won more than 20 journalism awards, including Senior Reporter of the Year at the Qantas awards in 1997, and the Citibank award. She is a published author (In the Arena and A Woman’s Place), and a trained yoga teacher and yoga therapist.
Mark Stewart is an award-winning staff photographer for News Corp Australia, based at Melbourne’s Herald Sun.
Over two decades in newspapers he has covered the events, news, politics and sport that matter both locally and abroad. With a strong interest in the outdoors, sports photography and magazine work, you’ll usually find him on the sidelines at the AFL or in the studio when he’s not travelling the country by motorcycle.
Simon Day (Ngāti Hikairo) is the head of growth and strategy at ATA, a kaupapa Māori social media agency. He has been drawn to the power of great storytelling his whole life. At school he wanted to be a sports journalist, at university a political reporter, while travelling around the world he was sure he would become a foreign correspondent. By the time he returned to Aotearoa he discovered he just wanted to tell great stories that explained who we are. Simon has worked at Stuff, World Vision, The Spinoff and was most recently the Head of Re: News at TVNZ.
Trish is a political commentator and co-founder of Corporate Affairs firm, Sherson Willis, which she set up in 2006 with Rewa Willis after working in media and politics.
Trish started her career in radio as a journalist for Radio New Zealand and a producer for Radio Pacific. She then worked in Parliament as Senior Caucus Press Secretary before heading back into news and current affairs as a Wellington based producer for TVNZ’s Late Edition and Holmes shows.
