2010 Making Their Mark Recipients
Our Making Their Mark ceremony – timed to be part of Leadership Week in June – honoured St Cuthbert’s old girls Sarah Williamson, general manager of Mt Cook Airlines, Natalie Archer, co-founder of strategic advisory firm Bendelta, and Rebecca Elvin, a High Court barrister.
Guest of honour Vicki Watson, general manager of the Sir Peter Blake Trust, commended St Cuthbert’s on being the first school in the country to become involved in Leadership Week events.
Two of last year’s Making Their Mark recipients were among the “Emerging Leaders” honoured at the recent Sir Peter Blake Trust Leadership Awards.
They are consultant paediatrician and playwright Renee Liang, and Karen Willcox, associate professor of aeronautics and astronautics and co-director at the Center for Computational Engineering at the famed Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Sarah Williamson
Sarah Williamson’s qualifications include a Master of Science Honours degree in Psychology and a Bachelor Degree in Geography and Psychology from the University of Auckland.
The first few years of her career were spent as a Human Resources Consultant, resulting in her becoming Head of HR at the Bank of New Zealand, which at the time had 5000 employees.
She entered the airline industry in 1999 and for the past decade has been with Air New Zealand in various high-profile positions.
In May 2009, she was appointed General Manager of the Air New Zealand subsidiary, Mt Cook Airlines, where she is responsible for eleven aircraft and 400 staff. Sarah is also on the board of directors of Mt Cook Airlines.
She is responsible for leading a commercial airline to return better than industry benchmark performance in terms of operational excellence, financial performance, delivery of service excellence, regulatory and safety compliance
Natalie Archer
Natalie Archer completed a double degree (Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Commerce) at the University of Auckland in four years whilst working part-time as a management consultant. She began her career with Sheffield Ltd, an organisational consulting firm, and was the co-founder of operations for their Australian arm.
In 2003, she co-founded Bendelta, a specialist strategic advisory firm based in Sydney. Thje company now has 12 consultants and 10 flexible contractors. Natalie appears regularly on the Australian Channel 7’s Kochie’s Business Builder show as an authority on business, and is a frequent keynote speaker in Australia and elsewhere on leadership and strategy.
At 23, she became a World Vision NZ Board member – their youngest board member globally. Natalie also gives strategic assistance to the board of the NZ Child Cancer Foundation.
Among her leisure interests is horse racing and breeding. With her family, she has ten thoroughbreds in New Zealand, including the reigning Horse of the Year.
Rebecca Elvin
Rebecca Elvin graduated from the University of Otago with a Bachelor of Laws then a Bachelor of Arts in English & Political Studies, after which she was invited into an Honours programme. In 2009, she was admitted as a Barrister and Solicitor for the High Court of New Zealand.
From September 2010, she will be studying towards a Master of Arts in Conflict Resolution in Divided Societies at King’s College, University of London.
She has been a volunteer with City Lights (which helps socially disadvantaged people in Auckland); a member of Amnesty International’s Auckland Legal Network; a mentor with the Brothers in Arms programme for at-risk youth Auckland; and a volunteer with Homes of Hope, a trust established to provide foster care for children.
As Rebecca was working in the International Criminal Court in The Hague at the time of the Making Their Mark ceremony, the award was received on her behalf by her mother, Fiona.