Presenter profiles
Robert Beaglehole
Robert is public health physician active in strengthening the global prevention of chronic diseases and the practice of public health in New Zealand.
Heather Gifford
Director, Whakauae Research for Māori Health and Development
Dr Heather Gifford is a Māori public health researcher from Whanganui. She leads a tribally based health research centre, Whakauae Research for Māori Health and Development. She has recently been involved in two national obesity research projects; as an advisor on the Cost-effectiveness of Public Health Interventions to Prevent Obesity and as a researcher on The National HEHA Evaluation. With members of her team she also carries out evaluations of various locally driven HEHA projects.
Mark Hawthorne
McDonald's Restaurants (New Zealand) Ltd
Appointed as Managing Director of McDonald's New Zealand in September 2006, Mark is responsible for the overall performance of the New Zealand and Pacific Island markets, their people and results.
Originally from Australia, Mark started with McDonald's 20 years ago as a crew person. With seven years experience as a restaurant manager and a further seven in the finance team, Mark has progressively broadened his role across the organisation, before becoming Director of Strategic Supply across both Australia and New Zealand.
Now in his role as Managing Director, Mark has overarching responsibility for 152 restaurants around New Zealand, 11 in the Pacific Islands, and more than 9000 staff.
Mark has a Bachelor of Financial Administration, majoring in Accounting, and is a qualified chartered accountant. In addition, Mark sits on the Board of Ronald McDonald House Charities New Zealand.
Matt McCartan
National Secretary, Unite Union
Matt McCarten is the General Secretary of the Unite Union, predominantly representing young workers in the hospitality and restaurant sector. Matt was longtime president and campaign manager of the Alliance and before that the New Labour Party. He is a political columnist and commentator.
Jim Mann
Professor of Human Nutrition and Medicine, University of Otago
Jim Mann is Professor in Human Nutrition and Medicine at the University of Otago and Consultant Physician (Endocrinology) in Dunedin Hospital. He is also the Director of the Edgar National Centre for Diabetes and Obesity Research (now EDOR) and the WHO Collaborating Centre for Human Nutrition. His research has principally been in the fields of lipids and carbohydrates as they relate to coronary heart disease and diabetes in the field of obesity. However he has also been particularly interested in the role of obesity as a cause of cancer and was a member of the Advisory Group and Panel of the World Cancer Research Fund (WCRF) which produced the 2007 Report on “Food, Nutrition, Physical Activity and the Prevention of Cancer”, followed by the 2009 Policy Report, “Policy and Action for Cancer Prevention”.
Lorelei Mason
Health Reporter, ONE News
Lorelei has been TV One News Health Correspondent for the past ten years and a One News Senior Reporter for 17 years. She has won 12 New Zealand and Australian Journalism awards in her career, including twice being awarded the Qantas TV News Reporter of the Year. She has covered all major health issues in recent years from cervical cancer inquiries and swine flu outbreaks to political upheavals and medical breakthroughs. Christchurch-based, Lorelei works full-time and is a mother of three children.
Shane Ngatai
Principal of Rhode Street School, Hamilton
Shane Ngatai: (Ngai Te Rangi / Ngati Awa) Principal of Rhode Street School in Hamilton for the past five years, father of six healthy children, married to Deborah, and an ex-chef and entrepreneur. Shane is an educational leader of sustainable healthy living where the whole school community "walks the talk" when it comes to teaching and practicing healthy eating and healthy action.
Grant Schofield
Professor of Public Health, Auckland University of Technology
Grant Schofield is Professor of Public Health at AUT University. He has a special interest in the workplace as a setting to promote health. His recent work has examined both the efficacy of such approaches is reducing the burden of chronic disease as well as other business related parameters such as staff retention, engagement, absenteeism, and presenteeism. In this session Grant will look at how we can take best practice in workplace health that benefits everyone from business owners, to employees.
Moana Tane
Chief Executive Te Hotu Manawa Māori
Te Rōroa, Ngā Korokoro, Ngāti Wharara, Ngāti Hine
Moana (BEd. PGDip.Public Health) has community and iwi development experience, and a background in education including primary, secondary and adult literacy, both in New Zealand and abroad. Since joining the health sector in 2006, Moana has been involved primarily in training across a number of different organisations: PHARMAC, Māori health and social service providers, and the DHB workforce. With a passion for ICT, Moana has developed a number of training programmes that integrate an online e-learning component, Ngā Kete Hauora, and as the CEO of Te Hotu Manawa Māori, is leading the organisation toward the use of e-tools to address barriers to learning such as distance, cost and access.
Rachael Taylor
Karitane Senior Research Fellow in Early Childhood Obesity, University of Otago
Rachael Taylor is the Karitane Senior Research Fellow in Early Childhood Obesity, and has been involved in weight management research for the last 15 years. She leads or co-leads several large-scale studies aiming to determine how best to prevent obesity from occurring in young children, as well as studies looking for good treatment options in children who are already overweight.
Jim Tully
Head of the School of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Canterbury
Associate Professor Jim Tully has been Head of the School of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Canterbury since 2009. He joined academia in 1987 after 18 years in daily newspapers during which he was the inaugural New Zealand Journalist of the Year and held such positions as editorial manager and assistant editor of the Auckland Star and editor of the 8 O'Clock weekend newspaper.
Jim has acted as a UNESCO consultant in Western Samoa and the Cook Islands and has held numerous workshops on science communication for the Royal Society of New Zealand. He has edited “Challenging the Future: Connecting the Words in Risk Communication”, published by the NZ Centre for Advanced Engineering; edited and wrote most of “Intro: a beginner's guide to professional news journalism”, the prescribed text for journalism schools in New Zealand; co-edited “In the Public Interest”. Jim received the university's Teaching Award in 2007. He is a frequent commentator on the media.
