Accounting for 30 percent of the population and 35 percent of the economy, Auckland is New Zealand’s dominant city. Whoever will be Auckland’s mayor after October’s local elections, he or she will play an important role for Auckland–
and for New Zealand.
 
The New Zealand Initiative is pleased to host two of the leading candidates for the Auckland mayoralty. Victoria Crone and Phil Goff will share their visions for the ‘City of Sails’ and debate them with our members.

About the speakers

Phil Goff is the current Mayor-elect of Auckland and the current Member of the New Zealand Parliament for Mount Roskill. During the Fifth Labour Government, in office from 1999 to 2008, he served in a number of ministerial portfolios, including Minister of Defence of New Zealand, Minister of Corrections, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Minister for Disarmament and Arms Control and Associate Minister of Finance. He served as Leader of the Opposition and Leader of the Labour Party between 11 November 2008 and 13 December 2011. He was elected Mayor of Auckland in October 2016 in the Auckland mayoral election, 2016, succeeding Len Brown who stepped down after two terms.

Vic Crone has extensive business experience managing large teams, high-growth portfolios, and billion-dollar revenue streams. This has been bolstered by her governance skills which she is putting to use as an Independent Non-Executive Director on the Board of Contact Energy, one of New Zealand’s largest listed companies. Vic is actively involved in the not-for-profit sector where she serves as the Chair of Figure.NZ. Vic is also a director of Aura Information Security, Creative HQ and is a trustee of the NZ Hi-Tech Trust. In addition to these roles, she is also a member of NZ Global Women.

Please contact Chelsy at chelsy.blair@nzinitiative.org.nz for further information. For more information about being a member please visit our Membership page.