2026 RemNet Conference Speaker Profiles
Anjali Rajan
Compensation & Benefits, HR Systems and Reporting Lead
Lactalis New Zealand + RemNet Committee Chair
Anjali Rajan is the Compensation & Benefits, HR Systems and Reporting Lead at Lactalis New Zealand, where she is responsible for reward, HR systems, people reporting and analytics.
She has over 14 years of experience in Human Capital Management and People Advisory, gained through roles at Air New Zealand, EY New Zealand and Goldman Sachs. Throughout her career, Anjali has partnered with organisations to develop and deliver practical, commercially focused people solutions that support business performance and employee experience.
Her expertise spans Total Reward, Executive Remuneration, HR Systems, People Analytics and Global Mobility, with experience across aviation, FMCG, financial services, healthcare, and agribusiness.
As Chair of RemNet, Anjali is committed to strengthening New Zealand’s reward profession by encouraging knowledge sharing, fostering meaningful connections across the industry, and supporting the continued development of remuneration practice.
Melissa Clark-Reynolds ONZM
Speaker, Strategist, Futurist
Melissa Clark-Reynolds ONZM is a leading futurist, technology entrepreneur and certified Professional Futurist, dedicated to helping organisations navigate complexity and prepare for the future.
With a background spanning technology, innovation and entrepreneurship, Melissa has founded several successful tech companies and brings practical, real-world experience to her work. She trained at the prestigious Institute for the Future in Palo Alto and, in 2015, was appointed an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit for her contributions to New Zealand’s technology sector.
Melissa has worked with organisations including Spark, IAG and NASA, helping leaders develop future-focused strategies, embrace innovation and navigate digital disruption.
Known for her ability to make complex topics accessible, Melissa explores emerging trends, artificial intelligence and the future of work, empowering organisations to anticipate change and take confident, practical action.
Brad Olsen
Infometrics
Brad Olsen is the Principal Economist who is widely recognised as one of New Zealand’s most respected and engaging economic commentators.
Nicknamed “Bad News Brad” by ZM’s Fletch, Vaughan, and Hayley, Brad has been described as a “boy wonder and economist extraordinaire” and “the face of economics in New Zealand” and has built a reputation for cutting through noise and getting to the heart of what really matters.
Brad calls it how he sees it – without fear nor favour – in an engaging, witty, sometimes funny, but always informative way that helps audiences understand the economic forces shaping New Zealand and the decisions that sit ahead.
He is a community leader, and one of New Zealand’s youngest Justices of the Peace, performing both ministerial and judicial duties – alongside being a marriage celebrant. He serves on the Institute of Directors’ Wellington Branch Committee and is a member of the Asia New Zealand Foundation Leadership Network. His work in the community has been recognised numerous times: he was named New Zealand’s Queen’s Young Leader in 2016, one of Asia New Zealand Foundation’s 25 to Watch in 2019, and Young Wellingtonian of the Year 2020.
Robbie Hunter
National Key Account Manager NZ
Fitness Passport
Kathleen Webber
Co-Founder and CEO
LiveRem
Kathleen is the co-founder and CEO of LiveRem, a real-time people analytics platform helping HR leaders make smarter, faster decisions around pay, talent, and workforce planning. With a background in risk, compliance, and payroll, she also built ResolvePay, a Holidays Act compliance company trusted by large enterprises.
She’s passionate about helping HR lead with confidence by using data to drive better decisions. Kathleen lives at the beach with her husband and two kids.
Alison Bamford
Health and Benefits Leader
Marsh New Zealand
Alison Bamford leads Marsh’s Health & Benefits business in New Zealand and brings more than 20 years’ experience helping employers navigate workforce health, financial wellbeing, and rising benefit costs. She works with clients across industries to develop strategic, practical solutions that balance cost control with employee value, drawing on Marsh’s global advisory, insurance, and digital capabilities.
She knows the tension well – the instinct to trim cover rarely survives when a workforce truly values their benefits. She helps employers find the middle path: a structured, strategic approach that optimises costs and outcomes.
Angela Williams
Employee Benefits Consultant
Marsh New Zealand
Angela Williams is an Employee Benefits Consultant at Marsh New Zealand, with more than 18 years of experience in the local market. Based in Tauranga, Angela brings deep regional insight and a strong understanding of the unique challenges faced by organisations across different parts of New Zealand.
She advises clients on strategies that strengthen workforce resilience, support talent attraction and retention and help protect employee wellbeing. Angela also works with organisations to manage benefit spend and make informed decisions in an evolving risk environment.
Known for her local knowledge and practical approach, Angela partners closely with clients to deliver solutions that are commercially sound and people focused.
Alex Kotiah
Employee Benefits Consultant
Marsh New Zealand
Alex Kotiah is an Employee Benefits Consultant at Marsh New Zealand, where he helps organisations strengthen their employee benefits strategies to deliver better outcomes for employers and their people. He advises clients on people risk, workforce resilience and the design and implementation of benefits solutions that support talent attraction and retention.
With more than 22 years’ experience across South Africa and New Zealand, Alex is recognised for his practical, data driven approach to helping clients manage benefit spend, protect employee wellbeing, and make informed decisions in an increasingly complex risk environment.
Neil White
Principal Consultant, NZ Government Lead
Korn Ferry
Neil works with Senior Leaders to drive strategic performance initiatives. In his role, he draws on his deep technical remuneration and organisational development experience to help organisations drive, reward and retain employee performance.
With over 10 years’ experience in remuneration from both in-house and consulting roles, his experience includes working with clients from all sectors including the Government, Private and Not for Profit Sectors.
Cathy Hendry
Managing Director
Strategic Pay
Cathy Hendry is the Managing Director of the proudly New Zealand owned and operated Strategic Pay and a seasoned remuneration professional with over 17 years’ experience in the industry.
Leading Strategic Pay since 2021, Cathy brings invaluable experience and insight to her role. As a dedicated advocate for pay equity, Cathy’s commitment to this cause has seen her actively engage with organisations such as MindTheGap and promoting research and analysis on Pay Gaps within New Zealand contributing significantly to the ongoing discourse on achieving pay equity within remuneration practices.
Tanya Giles
Director
PwC
Tanya works as a Director in PwC’s Executive Reward Services team – based in Auckland.
With 25+ years’ experience in remuneration and reward, Tanya consults with clients on reward strategy, market remuneration benchmarking, directors’ fees benchmarking and short-term incentive (STI) design and review. Sector expertise includes professional services, energy and transport/infrastructure.
Tanya has a Master of Arts and a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Auckland and has completed papers in the ‘World at Work’ Global Compensation Professional certification.
Jenny Dicker
Manager, People Advisory Services – Reward
EY
Jenny Dicker is a Manager in EY’s Reward practice, advising organisations on executive and workforce remuneration, incentive design and reward strategy. With more than 17 years’ experience helping organisations navigate complex business and people challenges, and a background spanning audit, learning and development and reward consulting, she brings a unique combination of commercial insight and people-focused thinking to her work. Jenny is passionate about understanding what motivates people and how reward can support sustainable performance.
Melissa Klaricich
GM Reward
Lactalis New Zealand
Sonia Askelund
Tribe Lead – People
Air New Zealand
Sonia Askelund is General Manager – People at Air New Zealand and a strategic, commercially focused people and culture leader. Her remit spans strategic workforce planning and talent, leadership, culture and employee experience, performance and reward, people analytics and platforms, and people operations, including recruitment and employee support. She is passionate about building outstanding leaders and teams, shaping great employee experiences, and driving change that lasts. Known for her pragmatic style and curiosity, Sonia connects people strategy to business outcomes and is particularly interested in how organisations balance commercial realities with employee expectations and future capability.
Douglas Reid
Group Manager Reward and Analytics
Genesis Energy
Doug leads the Remuneration, HR Analytics, and HRIS functions at Genesis Energy, where he has spent the past four years. In that time, he has led the development of a five-year systems and analytics roadmap, introduced a new employee listening strategy and platform, implemented new performance and talent management systems and processes, and incorporated sustainability metrics into short-term and long-term incentive plans.
Before joining Genesis, Doug spent eight years at Air New Zealand leading Remuneration, Benefits, Global Mobility, and HR Systems. He also served as Senior Manager Remuneration at Westpac New Zealand and spent nine years with Korn Ferry/Hay Group consulting across New Zealand, the Pacific, and India in remuneration strategy, organisation design, performance management, and leadership development.
Throughout his career, Doug has had a strong focus on gender pay equity, from contributing to the equity claim between primary and post-primary teachers in the late 1990s, to helping Westpac achieve the inaugural YWCA Gold Gender Pay Equity Award, and advancing pay equity strategies at both Air New Zealand and Genesis Energy.
Sarah Keenan
Associate Director | Organisation Workforce Transformation
Deloitte New Zealand
Sarah is an Organisation and Workforce Transformation specialist with over 20 years’ experience leading large-scale change across public and private sector organisations. She specialises in designing and embedding modern learning, leadership, and workforce strategies that build readiness for digital and AI-driven transformation.
With a background spanning HR and Organisation Development, Sarah brings a practical lens to how workforce capability, behaviour, and performance intersect. She focuses on translating complex transformation-such as AI adoption-into scalable, people-centred approaches that build confidence, capability, and sustained behaviour change across the workforce.
Shirley Walls
Senior Specialist Lead | Human Resource Strategy and Technology
Deloitte New Zealand
Shirley is a Senior Specialist Lead in Deloitte’s HR Transformation practice, providing payroll advisory, compliance, and implementation support. She works with organisations to navigate complex payroll legislation, improve payroll processes and systems, and deliver payroll transformation and Holidays Act remediation programmes.
With over 30 years of payroll experience across New Zealand’s public and private sectors, Shirley has built deep expertise in payroll legislation, Holidays Act compliance, payroll operations, and system implementation. She is known for combining technical payroll knowledge with a practical, business-focused approach, helping clients translate legislative and operational requirements into sustainable payroll solutions that work in practice.
Shirley leads Deloitte New Zealand’s Employment Leave Act advisory offering and is a recognised subject matter expert in payroll legislation and leave compliance. She supports organisations in understanding and responding to legislative change, with a particular focus on payroll impacts, compliance obligations, operational readiness, and implementation planning.
Ben Choo
People Analytics & Systems Manager
Genesis Energy
Suzanne Florian
Head of Remuneration & People Systems
Douglas Pharmaceuticals
Suzanne is the Head of Remuneration and People Insights at Douglas Pharmaceuticals, a NZ owned pharmaceutical company.
She has worked in the NZ, US and Fiji markets where she has developed and implemented remuneration, compensation and benefits plans and frameworks that support the organisations goals. Suzanne has previously been a People Partner so is an expert at balancing the needs of the organisation with the needs of the employees.
Suzanne is a seasoned P&C professional with a mix of generalist and specialist experience, along with a positive, people focus and keenness for efficiency.
Aimee Laing
Remuneration and Benefits Lead
Hamilton City Council
Currently working at Hamilton City Council and with extensive background across all areas of HR, Aimee partners with Senior Leaders to provide advice and strategic insights across Remuneration, Employee Benefits, HRIS and Payroll to drive desired business outcomes.
Erica Wilson
Head of Reward
Fonterra Co-Operative Group
Erica is a rewards professional known for her solutions-focused approach and stakeholder relationships. As Head of Reward at Fonterra, she is a key contributor in shaping the Co-op’s global rewards approach, collaborating on the design and implementation of impactful programs that align with strategic business goals and support the Co-op’s diverse, global workforce.
Before joining Fonterra, Erica was Rewards Manager at Clear Channel International in the United Kingdom, where she collaborated with teams across Europe, Asia, and Latin America to implement rewards strategies and frameworks across varied cultural and commercial contexts. Between Clear Channel and Fonterra, Erica has managed rewards across more than 40 countries!
Erica began her career at Z Energy in New Zealand, building expertise in rewards, performance management, people analytics, and HRIS, building a well-rounded foundation as an HR professional.
Lauren Parsons, CSP, AS
International speaker, author, and expert in resilience, wellbeing, and leadership.
Lauren Parsons is a sought-after international speaker, author, and expert in resilience, wellbeing, and leadership. She’s passionate about equipping busy professionals with powerful strategies to enhance energy, vitality and performance.
Named NZ Keynote Speaker of the Year and Educator of the Year for 2024 by the Professional Speakers Association, Lauren is one of only a handful of Certified Speaking Professionals and the only Toastmasters International Accredited Speaker in New Zealand. With over 20 years of experience, she’s a TEDx speaker, author of Thriving Leaders Thriving Teams, and host of the Thrive TV Show.
Lauren blends her expertise in wellness, business, and leadership to focus on the intersection of boosting both wellbeing and productivity. Described as dynamic, life-changing, and unforgettable, Lauren’s presentations leave audiences inspired, uplifted, and ready to take immediate action.
Based in the Manawatu, New Zealand, Lauren lives with her husband, three children and a menagerie of animals. She travels regularly to speak at conferences and in-house, helping leaders create positive, energised workplaces, where people thrive.
See all the goodness at Lauren’s “Free Stuff” page – www.LaurenParsonsWellbeing.com
