• "I was a reluctant lawyer. I never intended to be one; it was something I had to do until I could move on and go back into the family business."

  • "She (Dame Therese Walsh) doesn't just mentor people; she sponsors them, pushes them, challenges them, and creates space for their growth."

  • "What motivates me is the complexity of relationships, stakeholders, and the ability to use the organisations I lead to create systemic or societal change. With the IoD, that means influencing leaders because better governance leads to better businesses and better communities, which is better for New Zealand."

  • "I try to limit my public speaking to no more than three times a week because it affects my nerves. I’ve even used hypnotherapy and up until last year I was still working with a presentation coach to control my nerves."

  • "You can only progress as fast as the team you build around you. Attracting and retaining great people is a huge part of managing my workload because I trust them to do their thing, which allows me space for other things."

  • "It takes a village to raise a child, and I firmly believe it also takes a village to raise a career."

  • "I highly recommend that young professionals go and explore the world. Take your 'New Zealandness' to the world, go explore and bring new ideas back."

  • "If a commercial business doesn't have an observer program, approach them and suggest starting one with you as their first future director."

  • "Every issue is a governance issue, whether it’s equal pay, climate change, geopolitics, cyber security, or AI (artificial intelligence). If you distil all that down, the core challenge is: How do you make choices, judgments, and decisions about an uncertain future in a volatile environment on imperfect information?"

  • "They are left with the tricky things - weighing up trade-offs like financial stability versus climate investment, or AI impact versus ethical privacy concerns. Usually, they are choosing between two good or two bad outcomes - it's rarely black and white."

  • "Get involved in the share market and start investing early. Whether it's through Sharesies or whatever avenue, that's where the real money is to be made. Future KP would have really appreciated it if past KP had gotten her financial house in order earlier instead of shopping and spending."