Southland Leadership Academy
Developing future Southland leaders
The Southland Leadership Academy has been developing Southland leaders since 2019.
We host three intakes of 12 participants each year in Invercargill. In addition to delivering the Leadership Academy on Stewart Island Rakiura, during 2021 – 2022 we will offer Intakes across Southland including Te Anau, Edendale, Lumsden, Gore and Otautau.
The purpose of this programme, which is completed over multi-days, is to provide leaders with the opportunity to build leadership capabilities through their own personal development and by learning from the experience of others.
The Leadership Academy is for people who are passionate about developing their existing leadership experience and who have the potential for holding senior positions and governance roles.
The participant, at the completion of the experiential and reflective learning sessions, will be better equipped and have a good understanding of what is required to be a leader in their own organisation and in the wider business community.
Each session is led by a senior executive from significant Southland – Otago based businesses or other organisations. The participant will benefit from the opportunity to interact with the presenter and build an ongoing connection with them, and other participants.
At the end of the programme, participants will graduate and be invited to become a member of the Southland Leadership Academy Alumni.
Meet our Inspirers
Jason Tibble
Regional Commissioner
MSD
Jocelyn O'Donnell
Director
HW Richardson Group
Robert Boekhout
General Manager
Blue River Dairy
Geoff Finnerty
General Manager
South Port NZ Ltd
Dr Flora Gilkison
CEO
Hospice Southland
Stewart Hamilton
General Manager
NZ Aluminium Smelter
Richard Roberts
CEO
Dunedin Airport
Penny Simmonds
MP for Invercargill
Todd Grave
CEO
Blue Sky Meats (NZ) Ltd
Michelle Henderson
Director
Red Rabbit & Co
Shaun Drylie
CEO
SBS Bank
Dean Addie
CEO
EIS Ltd
Aimee Kaio
Programme Manager
Tokona te Ao of Te Runanga o Ngai Tahu
Paddy O'Brien
High Performance Sevens Referee Manager
World Rugby
Danny Leonard
Operational Excellence Business Partner
PowerNet Ltd
Paul Adams
Founder and Director Stabicraft Marine Ltd
Dougal McGowan
Economic Development Project Manager, Enterprise Dunedin
Clare Hadley
CEO
Invercargill City Council
Bernadette Hunt
Farmer, and Vice President
Federated Farmers
Mark O'Connor
Director
O'Connor Consulting
Richard Gray
General Manager
Operations Lower South Island - Fonterra
Mike Lange
CEO
Vet South NZ
Stephen O'Connor
Principal
Mitre Wealth Management
Amanda Whitaker
Acting Deputy CEO
Southern Institute of Technology
What our Alumni say
We were provided with excellent speakers, all of whom shared their wisdom openly. Strongly recommend this short course to anyone wanting to improve their leadership skills. 
The Academy allowed me to challenge the status quo and utlise real life stories to learn valuable leadership learnings. Being in the rural sector it has widened my connections and networks. A great programme for realising where the gaps in your journey lie. 
An amazing 8 weeks. Being able to hear leadership stories, learning and reflections from amazing leaders was a true privilege with so many takeaways. A must do investment for any organisation to support your leaders to lift their gaze and grow and strengthen their leadership skillset. 
The opportunity to upskill, challenge my thinking and meet like-minded people from different industries was invaluable. I quickly realised that all leaders have the same issues and challenges and the course content was very relevant to our business. I would highly recommend the Academy. 
A highly valuable course, well worth the investment! Awesome opportunity to learn from and be challenged by highly effective leaders while forming lasing connections with likeminded people. An incredible course that I would highly recommend to people wanting to challenge themselves. 
A fantastic interactive group of sessions with likeminded people from other industries. It’s great to hear from local leaders to see what they do and what ideas farmers can grab to add value to their businesses. 
The presenters we had were of such a high quality, extremely interesting and very approachable - you left each week feeling invigorated and with more strings to your bow. Fantastic initiative and a definite must for the current and future leaders of our Region. With thanks to our sponsors
SPONSORS and PARTNERS
SUPPORTEd by
Scholarships
SPONSORS and PARTNERS
SUPPORTEd by
Scholarships