The Chamber has a strong commitment to growing our future business leaders. This starts with delivery of the Lion Foundation Young Enterprise Scheme, and offering a range of business and leadership professional development training programmes including The Southland Leadership Academy.  

Governance plays a critical role in the leadership lifecycle. In 2019, we introduced The Governance Internship Programme to support our region’s emerging leaders. This programme provides an opportunity for Southland Leadership Academy alumni to work at a board level to gain governance experience, develop their capability, knowledge and skills.  

How does it work?

We invite organisations in Southland to become part of this programme to help ensure we have the skilled and experienced leaders’ to govern our province in the future.

• The intern will be a graduate of the Southland Leadership Academy.
• The applicant will have an interest in gaining governance experience, a passion for making the boat go faster and the ability to work with a range of people and personalities.
• The successful applicant will serve for 12 months as a non-voting member and participate fully in every aspect of the board (this could be split into two 6-month tenures if multiple suitable applicants are selected).
• The intern will be expected to attend all board meetings, networking events and undertake sub-committee duties when required plus any other expectations applicable to each organisation.
• The intern will sign an intern board member agreement, and a confidentiality agreement. 
• We estimate the time commitment to be around six-hours a month, but this will vary between organisations, and be dependent on individual project involvement.