Making connections

Tania Te Rangingangana Simpson’s dad was worried. How would she develop a career or even get a job majoring in Māori traditions, knowledge and language at Waikato University?

Many decades later the director of Auckland International Airport, Meridian Energy and Tainui Group Holdings has carved out an exceptional career, including in housing and public policy with a core focus on sustainability and supporting Māori.

Raised in Te Kuiti, from Ngāi Tahu, Ngā Puhi, Tainui decent, Simpson CFInstD can name numerous mentors along the way from the elders who taught her sustainability practices, to the university lecturer who recommended her for her first role as Māori housing officer with the Housing Corporation.

She admits she sought out mentors who helped her expand her knowledge about lending by seconding her to a merchant bank while she was working for the Ministry of Māori Development (Te Puni Kōkiri).

“I have actively attached myself to people and look to them. Generally they are very giving, you just have to have a little bit of confidence.”

One of only a few Māori graduates in her year, you could say Simpson was ahead of her time, but she believes the time was right for her skills to be recognised.

“It was the renaissance. There were discussions including around Māori broadcasting, Māori language regeneration, development of kōhanga reo – there were very good opportunities.”

It was those skills that were recognised as essential to help establish a lending programme to support Māori to build on their land through both the papakāinga and kaumātua housing initiatives at Housing New Zealand, then at Te Puni Kōkiri.

“Because there are multiple owners of Māori land, it required a lot of support to get consent from all the landowners. It was quite a process establishing a trust, getting consent, developing a ‘licence to occupy’, survey and come up with a security arrangement and a transportable home.”

It is with frustration that all these years later she sees her people living in poverty, even though they own land. “The current system doesn’t recognise multiple landowners, meaning the land cannot be offered as security. It concerns me that 30 years on we are no better off, but with goodwill and motivation it is solvable.”

Simpson is proud of having negotiated the return of New Zealand’s only repatriated and most-travelled Māori meeting house, Mataatua Wharenui, while in the Office of Treaty Settlements. Delivered back in pieces, it now stands proudly on the Whakatāne shore.

It was while working on Treaty negotiations that she had the ‘aha’ moment that made her reassess her work-life balance, inevitably leading to her long and successful career as a director.

“I was living in Wellington but travelling to see my terminally ill father every weekend, often carrying out negotiations from his home in Te Kuiti. I had already lost my brother to cancer at the age of 29. I thought, ‘you never know when your time will be up,’ so I restructured my life, moved back to the King Country, set myself up consulting (Kowhai Consulting) and built a sustainable home in Waitomo.”

Simpson is well known for her work around sustainability and says she is blessed with growing up learning sustainable methods from Māori elders.

“Sustainability practices are bringing us closer to Māori environmental practices, which have a lot to offer with an increasing convergence between younger generation’s thinking and the traditional Māori system of values.

“They are both driving for an integrated system of outcomes; businesses working for wider societal outcomes that are not solely profit driven, not profit at any expense, and not profit over people.”

Simpson, who claims to have an ‘optimism bias’, is confident in New Zealand having a fair, sustainable future because of the way the next generation thinks and says business needs to mirror their attitude. “That means businesses that do no harm and make a meaningful contribution to society, its people and the environment, including reversing the damage that has already been done.”

The mix of knowledge and love of Māori culture and language have positioned her well as an asset on boards where she sees herself as a connector and translator. “Most boards have a relationship with iwi. I’m helping them to connect and understand what iwi are telling them and what their interests are.”

Having a Māori voice on a board makes a difference to an organisation. Boards are where the change happens and that has a flow-on effect for organisations. “But you must be satisfied with incremental progress because if you can’t accept that, you’ll be frustrated. Sometimes change can be very slow, you have to allow time for understanding and be willing to engage. And you have to be okay with that.”

Balance is a word that comes up often with Simpson, who believes she now has that right with board directorships in not-for-profit, commercial and government sectors.

As well as her directorships, she is a member of the Waitangi Tribunal and a Chartered Fellow of the Institute of Directors. She has guided developing Māori organisations and supports recognition of the Treaty of Waitangi as a Trustee of Waitangi National Trust. She is also a member of the governance group of the Deep South National Science Challenge, which is focused on climate change adaptation, and chair of the Sustainable Seas National Science Challenge.

She is a past board member of Global Women NZ, past deputy chair of Landcare Research NZ and was a director of Mighty River Power for 13 years.

“I found my place, you find something that you enjoy, that doesn’t feel like work, that is meaningful, that you’re getting paid to do. It is the right space to be in.”