About Us

The New Zealand Business Excellence Foundation supports New Zealand organisations’ business improvement so they can achieve and sustain proven, world-class performance and results.

Who is the New Zealand Business Excellence Foundation?

The New Zealand Business Excellence Foundation (NZBEF) was founded in 1992 by the Rt. Honorable Sir James Bolger, Sir Douglas Myers, and other prominent private and public business leaders.

It was created to improve New Zealand’s organisations’ overall performance and to celebrate success by way of premier business excellence awards.

Our team of business improvement experts supports businesses in their success journey through consulting services, courses, and events.

IndependEnt

The NZBEF is an independent, not-for-profit membership organisation. We support and guide New Zealand organisations to achieve world-class performance, productivity and capability.

Scalable

We support large and small organisations from all sectors in their business improvement journeys.

Diverse

Member organisations come from all sectors such as government, local bodies, small business, franchises, manufacturing, healthcare and education.

“The more a business is able to develop and articulate a core purpose, and engage with millennials, who equate purpose with business excellence, the greater chances for long-term success.”

Punit Renjen – CEO & Chairman, Deloitte

Our Vision

To be recognised as the champion of business excellence in New Zealand.

Our Mission

Supporting New Zealand organisations to achieve and sustain proven world-class performance and results.

“Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren’t used to an environment where excellence is expected.”

Steve Jobs – Apple

Our Business Improvement Team

Meet our business improvement team:

Wayne Burroughs

Board Chair

Wayne has a background as an executive in Defence and more recently in Government Regulatory practice organisations where he has been involved in leading and managing organisational change and projects both big and small.

Wayne has on ongoing interest in using the Baldrige Performance Excellence framework to assess organisations and identify opportunities for improvement. He is an Associate Fellow of the NZ Business Excellence Foundation and a NZ Baldrige Qualified Examiner; and has worked with a number of New Zealand organisations in their journey toward performance excellence.

As well as filling senior leader roles in changing organisations, Wayne works as a facilitator and management consultant. He is available to facilitate strategic and business planning workshops as well as working in the area of change management and project management.

He is a qualified PRINCE2 manager, Change Management practioner, and experienced Better Business Case user. He also has a MA degree in Strategic Studies from Kings College, London.

 

Ann-Kathrin Seit

Board Member

Ann-Kathrin joined the NZBEF board in June 2023.

AK grew up in Germany and is an international professional with over 17 years experience in Continuous Improvement/Six Sigma, Project Management, Event Management, Vendor Management, Communications/Branding, Customer Service, Leadership, Global Finance, Innovation, Business Excellence and Global Brokerage.

She has worked all over the world for global players and relocated to beautiful Aotearoa in 2017.

In her current role she covers the functions of Innovation, Continuous Improvement and Business Excellence for one of the biggest companies in New Zealand.

In her private time AK enjoys travelling, reading as well as being creative.

 

Beryl Oldham

Treasurer

Beryl Oldham has over 30 years’ experience in organisational learning and development, much of which was gained in the Royal New Zealand Navy. Since then she has held Human Resources and Organisational Learning and Development managerial positions in a number of organisations.

Beryl is passionate about measuring results and her company, Complete Learning Solutions, is NZ partner with Docebo LMS, Organizational Excellence Specialists, and the ROI Institute®.

 

Carew Hatherley

Board Member

Carew has a background of planning and guiding a range of ISO implementations for businesses successfully gaining certification in Quality, Environmental, Health & Safety and Information Security management systems. He is the Managing Director of The IQM (International Quality Management) Group. As well as ISO consulting and auditing, he is a NZ Class A Asbestos Removal certifier and also conducts Strategic Planning Days for Boards and Senior Leadership Teams. He is the IQM Group lead for all internal auditor courses. Having completed the Harvard Business School Data Privacy and Technology course in 2022, he is now a NZ Representative on the ISO (Geneva) Joint Technical Committee SC 27 – Information Security, Cybersecurity and Privacy Protection.

Carew is a Member of the NZ Institute of Directors and an elected Fellow of the Institute of Leadership & Management. After 23 years working all over the world with the UK Ministry of Defence, US Department of Defence and the United Nations he and his family settled in New Zealand. He held Senior Executive roles with Animates, Medtech Global and Storm Systems before joining The IQM Group.

Jeremy Cox

Board Member

Jeremy Cox joined the NZBEF board in May 2019.  Jeremy works for the NZDF and is Director of Defence Excellence – A portfolio consisting of Organizational Excellence, Innovation and Continuous Improvement (CI) overseeing a performance excellence program across the NZDF.  

Jeremy initially trained as an Avionics Engineer in civil aviation in the UK and later emigrated to New Zealand in 2003, rapidly rising through Maintenance Management in his 25 years in the airline industry both in the UK and NZ, achieving an executive MBA and is a certified lean six sigma process improvement expert, whilst leading and managing teams of up to 450 staff in various roles to General Manager level.

In the last 13 years he has worked on numerous contracts in a variety of industries, including; Flight Simulators, Cable Manufacturing, the Canterbury District Health Board, and now at NZDF implementing large scale projects through effective project management, change management, and lean process improvement methodologies. 

Miles Fordyce

Board Member

Miles joined the NZBEF board in June 2023.

Miles has held Chief Digital Officer, General Manager, Director, and other senior roles across numerous large and complex well-known national organisations in New Zealand and Australia including local icons such as NZ Post, Air NZ, Westpac NZ, Foodstuffs North Island, The University of Auckland, and Auckland Transport.  Miles has also held consulting roles with Accenture in New Zealand and Australia, working with numerous large organisations such as AMP, AxA and Rio Tinto helping them through business and operational excellence transformations.

His expertise spans over 30 years of digital strategy and innovation, strategic planning, risk and assurance, operational excellence, and digital transformation.  Miles is currently the Chief Digital and Innovation Officer for the Real Estate Institute of New Zealand and is an avid researcher of disruptive technologies and how they impact business processes and operational design.

Miles is a member of the Institute of Directors and holds degrees in Commerce and Digital Science. He is also an alumni of the Institute of Strategic Leadership.

Dr Robin Mann

Board Member

Dr Robin Mann is Head of the Centre for Organisational Excellence Research, Massey University, New Zealand, Chairman of the Global Benchmarking Network, Co-Founder of BPIR.com Limited – a best practice website resource, Founder of the International Best Practice Competition and Organisation-Wide Innovation Award, and Founder of the TRADE Best Practice Benchmarking Methodology which was initially developed for the New Zealand Benchmarking Club.

The TRADE methodology is the cornerstone of the Dubai Government Excellence Program’s “Dubai We Learn” initiative whereby Robin has overseen 35 benchmarking projects since 2015. Robin serves as a Business Excellence Advisor to many countries and has recently served as a technical coordinator for the Abu Dhabi Government Excellence Award and Mohammed bin Rashid Government Excellence Award. Dr Mann is originally from the UK where he obtained his PhD in TQM at Liverpool University in 1992.

He is currently overseeing a research project involving 30 countries to understand how the design and deployment of business excellence initiatives impact on nation building.

Tony Stephenson

Board Member

Tony has worked internationally as well as in NZ with a wide range of different industries including automotive, aeronautical, pharmaceutical, electronics, food and beverage, kiwifruit and horticulture and the construction industry sectors as well as government agencies involving aviation and border security.

He has worked with certification and accreditation bodies in Europe, Asia Pacific, Australia, and NZ as well as the USA and Brazil for over 30 years and is currently a committee member in NZ and Australia on several standards committees.

He is currently the Chairman of the IQM Group internationally and is the Moderator and Course developer for Exemplar Global offerings through the IQM Group internationally.

Tony was the initial Chairperson for NZOQ in 1977 and has served on the board on two separate occasions, as well as being the Executive Director for a period. He is currently on the Board of the NZ Safety Council and was the initial Membership moderator.

In the past he was a competitive cyclist, badminton, cricket, and squash player until the body said enough!  Now it is concentration time on the wide-ranging aspects of Business Development (he is a Business Mentor) including Management Systems, training, and development. Curiously he finds time to carry out Management Systems Audits for several certification bodies.

Contact Us

New Zealand Business Excellence Foundation

PO Box 331-658 Takapuna 0740

Level 3,
81 Grafton Road,
Auckland

(09) 489 8791

info@nzbef.org.nz

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