Board of Trustees

Our Board of Trustees is comprised of a combination of founding members, former principals who have gone through our programmes, and individuals committed to bettering the lives of young people in Aotearoa.

Dan Huggins

Kaiwhakahaere o te Poari | Board Member

Dan is the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of the Bank of New Zealand (BNZ) and first connected with Springboard Trust as a volunteer Capacity Partner in our inaugural Strategic Leadership for Principals Programme cohort in 2007.

He has 20 years’ experience across a range of industries, including Banking, Retail, and Manufacturing. Prior to BNZ, Dan was at the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA), in Sydney, where he held the role of Executive General Manager of Home Buying and was accountable for CBA’s home lending portfolio. Dan has also held roles at Fonterra, ASB and McKinsey & Company.

Liz O’Neil

Kaiwhakahaere o te Poari | Board Member

Liz is currently Chief Financial Officer (CFO) at Kāinga Ora.

A qualified Chartered Accountant (CA) and Fellow with Chartered Accountants ANZ (CAANZ), Liz has 25+ years’ experience in senior finance and commercial roles across large New Zealand companies including Lion, Telecom (Spark) & Fonterra. Liz first became involved with SBT in 2008 as a capacity partner. In 2011 she became an engagement manager for Alumni Services working closely with Homai School to embed their strategic goals. Co-opted onto the Board since 2012, she was appointed as a full Trustee in July 2014 and provides strategic support for Springboard Trust’s finances. Liz is also a member of the Baradene College Board.

Ian Narev

Kaiārahi Poari | Board Chair

Ian is the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of SEEK Limited, a market leader in online employment marketplaces in Australasia, South-East Asia and Latin America. Prior to joining SEEK in 2019 he was the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Commonwealth Bank of Australia, and before that a partner of McKinsey & Company.

He is a co-founder of Springboard Trust, and has worked closely with school principals each year since Springboard’s inception. He is also the Chair of New Zealand Rugby Commercial Limited and the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (Australia), and a former Chair of the Sydney Theatre Company and the Gonski Institute of Education at UNSW.

Frances Nelson

Kaiwhakahaere o te Poari | Board Member

Frances has 40 years’ experience as an educator and is an experienced principal having led six different primary schools that vary in decile range in Auckland and Northland. Frances served as an executive member of the NZEI Te Riu Roa for 12 years and then as president for three years. She is a former President of the Auckland Primary Principals’ Association, former New Zealand Council for Educational Research Board Member and a Justice of the Peace. Frances participated in the Strategic Leadership for Principals’ Programme in 2011.

Dr Laurie Thew

Kaiwhakahaere o te Poari | Board Member

Dr Laurie Thew is a former Principal of Manurewa Central School. Laurie was on our first 2007 SLPP cohort.

With 43 years in education, he is well respected and informs the board of much of the ‘coal-face’, research and leadership developments in education. He has served on a number of local, regional and national educational advisory groups and has been recognised by the New Zealand Principals’ Federation, the New Zealand Educational Institute and the Auckland Primary Principals Association. He was made a member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for Services to Education in 2004 and joined Springboard Trust’s board in 2009.

Malcolm Crotty

Kaiwhakahaere o te Poari | Board Member

Malcolm is a Partner at Russell McVeagh.

He is a qualified lawyer with over 22 years’ experience. A former Trustee of Knox Trust Board Malcolm has been involved with SBT since its inception and was appointed to the board in 2005. He deals with all matters legal and has spent several years working alongside management, developing the documentation supporting our innovative capacity building frameworks.

Billie-Jean Potaka Ayton

Kaiwhakahaere o te Poari | Board Member

Billie-Jean Potaka Ayton is Principal at Kaiti School in Te Tairāwhiti. She has been Principal there for 16 years and has brought the school from a 10-year trend of roll decline with a roll in 2009 of 130 to a roll of over 400 today. Kaiti School caters for years 1-8 students in bilingual and mainstream education pathways. Her leadership style comes from her grandparents who were instrumental in her early life and education. Billie-Jean was part of the first cohort of principals in Te Tairāwhiti to complete Springboard Trust’s Strategic Leadership for Principals Programme in 2016.

She is a member of the Māori Education Ministerial Advisory Group, has been on the ERO Principal’s Advisory group and is a ERO Leadership Partner. Billie-Jean was a recipient of the Woolf Fisher 2019 fellowship award where she traveled the world including visiting schools in Hawaii and Los Angeles and a week-long boot camp at Harvard University on leadership. In 2025 she was awarded an MNZM Honours award for services to Māori and Education.

Stan Whata

Kaiwhakahaere o te Poari | Board Member

Stan is the current principal of Koru School in Mangere, Auckland. His 25 years of principalship have seen him lead schools in Tokomaru Bay, Dargaville and Auckland. Each of these communities have their own special character which have shaped and modeled Stan’s leadership experience.

Stan has served the wider principal network in executive roles across a number of principal associations and as Lead Principal of his local Kāhui Ako. Additionally, he has passionately supported the growth and development of his peers through principal appraisal, mentoring, coaching and facilitation. Stan is a current Board Member of both One Tree Hill College and Auckland Girls’ Grammar School.