2006

Sir Kenneth Stevens is the Founder and Chair of Glidepath Limited, an engineering company specialising in computerised airport baggage handling equipment and projects. Since 1972, the company has grown to an estimated worth of $500 million with offices and facilities around the world.

Glidepath won 15 national awards for business and exporting achievements between 1991 and 2012. Sir Ken has been recognised on 9 occasions, including EY Entrepreneur of the Year Finalist 2005, Engineering Entrepreneur of the Year 2009, and a knighthood in 2009 for services to exporting.

Sir Ken plays a key role in a range of organisations and activities to promote New Zealand business and international cooperation including as a Board Member and Trustee of the Asia New Zealand Foundation and Chair of Export New Zealand. 

Dr Simon Moroney is the Co-Founder and CEO of MorphoSys AG, a Germany-based company actively engaged in drug development partnerships and clinical trials.

Prior to co-founding MorphoSys, Simon held positions at universities in the UK, Canada and Switzerland. From 1984 to 1986, while an Associate in the Harvard Medical School and an employee of ImmunoGen Inc, he worked on the first generation of anti-cancer antibody conjugates.  

His awards include the Bavarian State Medal for Outstanding Services to the Bavarian Economy 2009, the German Cross of the Order of Merit for services to biotechnology and a Commonwealth Scholarship to the University of Oxford.  

Alan MacDiarmid ONZ FRS was integral in working out how to make plastic conduct electricity, which has had innumerable practical applications in the information age and earned him a Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2000, making him New Zealand’s third Nobel Laureate.  

A Fulbright Fellowship and Shell Scholarship led to Sir Alan gaining doctorates at the University of Wisconsin and Cambridge University respectively. He joined the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania in 1955, where he held the distinguished position of Blanchard Professor of Chemistry from 1988 until his death in 2007.  

In 1999, Victoria University of Wellington accorded him an honorary doctorate and in 2001 created the Alan MacDiarmid Chair in Physical Chemistry. In 2000, the Royal Society of New Zealand awarded him its top honour, the Rutherford Medal, and in 2002 he became a Member of the Order of New Zealand, New Zealand’s highest accolade.  

Sir Alan continued with his pioneering research and eminent university positions around the world until his death in February 2007. His contribution to science and, more widely, the quality of human existence, was exceptional.

Assistant to the US President and Director of Strategic Initiatives, American Government

Chris Liddell CNZM is a widely respected New Zealand businessman who was the Vice Chair and CFO of General Motors. His leadership of the company’s global finance operations included the GM IPO, the largest ever IPO at the time.

His earlier career included Senior Vice President and CFO at Microsoft, CFO of International Paper and CEO of Carter Holt Harvey, New Zealand’s second largest listed company at the time.  

Chris currently brings his 30 years of finance and operation experience to the chairmanship of the Next Foundation and Xero.

He is a former director of the New Zealand Rugby Union and governor of the New Zealand Sports Foundation. A Distinguished Alumnus of the University of Auckland, Chris has actively supported a number of environmental projects in New Zealand. In 2015,

he was awarded the Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to business and philanthropy. 

Brent Hansen was a director of iconic 80s music show Radio With Pictures for four years.

In 1987, he joined MTV and climbed up the ranks to be President and Chief Executive MTV Europe followed by President of Creative and Editor-in-Chief MTV International. During this time, he was responsible for overseeing creative and editorial endeavours for 89 international channels as well as branding, creative, music, programming and editorial output for all global initiatives.

Brent has been instrumental in backing the music careers of Kiwis in the UK and was a major supporter of the 2000 retrospective exhibition of New Zealand modernist artist, Len Lye, at the celebrated Pompidou Centre in Paris and broadcast his avant-garde films across the MTV network.  

Sir Peter Gluckman ONZ, KNZM, FRS, FMedSci, FRSNZ is the Chief Science Advisor to the Prime Minister of New Zealand.

He has built an extraordinarily successful career as a New Zealand-trained, internationally distinguished scientist with extensive involvement in many aspects of science, health and educational policy development. He is the only New Zealander to be elected to the Institute of Medicine at the US National Academies of Science and the Academy of Medical Sciences of Great Britain.  

Prior to being the Chief Science Advisor, he was the Dean of the University of Auckland’s Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, and founded and was the Director of the Liggins Institute and the National Research Centre for Growth and Development.  

Sir Peter is a Fellow of the Royal Society of London, an honour bestowed on just 42 New Zealand-born scientists since the Society’s establishment in 1660. He received New Zealand’s top science award, the Rutherford Medal in 2001 and was named New Zealander of the Year in 2004. He was reassigned to Knight Companion in 2009 for services to medicine, having previously been made a CNZM in 1997. In 2015, he was appointed to the New Zealand Order of Merit. In 2016, he received the American Association for the Advancement of Science Award for Science Diplomacy.