International Speaker – David Mendes, now retired, operated 20,000+ hives for crop pollination and honey production. With a home base in Ft Myers, Florida, he brought bees to Maine for blueberry pollination and Massachusetts for cranberry pollination each summer and to California for almond pollination in the winter. In the Spring and Fall, the bees make honey in Florida. Dave has been a full-time commercial beekeeper since 1977. He is past president of the American Beekeeping Federation.

International Speaker – Alisha Taff is the primary owner and operator of Rock Front Ranch – a 320 acre diversified, organic sustainable ranch in the middle of the Las Padres National Forest in California. The ranch runs stocker cattle, has a horse training operation, an organic jujube orchard and of course, honey bees – which all work symbiotically with the limited resources of the land. Alisha studied animal science, ag business and ag journalism at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo. She decided that she wasn’t going to be a seed salesman or a veterinarian, so she pursued a career in the medical field before returning to agriculture. The birth of her daughter Ky was the catalyst to implement an environment of sustainability and regeneration at the ranch. Alisha stays busy producing and marketing glyphosate free, single source varietal honey, as well as organic jujube fruit – both produced at the ranch. She is not scared to work in the dirt, using regenerative ag methods to improve the quality of the biome at the ranch. She is forever a student, cultivating curiosity and learning to do better.
– Eco Farm – 2017 Regenerative Agriculture and Agro-Forestry Speaker
– California Rare Fruit Growers – 2017 & 2018 Co-Chair
– California Certified Organic Farmers – 2018 Vice President South Coast Chapter
– Apimondia Istanbul 2017 – attendee
– California State Bee Keepers Convention Speaker – 2017
– California South Valley Bee Keepers Association Dinner Speaker 2018
www.justjujubes.com
www.rockfrontranch.com

Brice Horner is an Apiculture consultant and trainer who is based in Mosgiel. He started running Beekeeping courses about fourteen years ago as an adjunct to his commercial operation.
In addition to his tutoring work, Brice has been actively involved for a number of years, in the development of training, for the American Foulbrood Management Agency. He regularly travels throughout New Zealand as part of the Agency’s Training Team, to organise or deliver training. Brice was part of the team that updated the AFB training package to its new format. He is perhaps best known however, for the “AFB App”, which he developed in response to a request from the Agency, to improve Beekeeper AFB recognition skills.
Brice is currently working with Taratahi Polytechnic and Farmlands to develop and deliver training.

Bronwyn Muir has spent her lifetime in the NZ farming industry. She grew up on a rugged eastern Taranaki hill country property near Whangamomona and after secondary school completed the Trade Cert. in Farming at Flock House Agricultural Training College near Bulls then did time shepherding and shearing in the central North Island and eastern Taranaki before managing then purchasing a dairy farm business in a sole charge capacity. Currently with her husband Phill they have raised a family while growing their farm business to its current level of 700 dairy cows in Taranaki. They have three children now in their twenties and who all have careers very invested in the NZ agricultural industry. Bronwyn is an avid advocate for farming, the lifestyle and the rural industry as a whole. She was responsible for the establishment of Taratahi Agricultural Training Centre in Taranaki, has very strong comprehension of farm training requirements, has facilitated DairyNZ discussion groups in North Taranaki and was the New Zealand Young Farmers National AgriKidsNZ Manager for 4years. Bronwyn developed OnFarmSafety NZ as a brand in April 2013 and now have clients throughout New Zealand and strives to support New Zealand farmers as they develop their health & safety systems to fit their farm workplace requirements. As exclusive health and safety providers for Apiculture NZ OnFarmSafety NZ focus on providing industry specific systems that meet the needs of Apiculture NZ businesses. In 2015 OnFarmSafety NZ succeeding in winning a number of local and national awards and Bronwyn was nominated as a Westpac Women of Influence in the rural category. She was President of Taranaki Federated Farmers (2013-17), a Lead team member of the Taranaki Regional Economic Development Strategy Project and a Trustee of Taranaki Rural Support Trust.

Heather Johnston is the General Manager – Health, Safety & Environment for Comvita – a natural health company located in Paengaroa, Bay of Plenty. With 20 years under her belt in health and safety, she has held safety management roles in varying industries including education, construction, agriculture and manufacturing industries. Being a manager with global reach and within a business which has varying work groups, cultures and demographics provides many challenges in culture maturity, engagement and in making health and safety real and relevant to everyone. Heather believes there is a real need to have a finger on the pulse when understanding how to embrace these challenges in our ever changing business environment, to ultimately deliver success stories of an inclusive safety culture and empowered workforce.

Sean Heasman is part of the Comvita H&S team and for the last 2 years has focused solely on reducing safety risk for Comvita’ s apiary teams. Sean grew up in an agricultural environment on a beef farm in the UK and has an good understanding of the challenges faced by the beekeepers accessing hive sites when they head through the gate. Having spent a number of operational roles in manufacturing most recently in the Kiwifruit industry Sean can also relate to harvest window deadlines and the seasonal demands placed on operational teams. “Stepping into a role working alongside beekeepers has been a fascinating journey to date, and I have a passion of ensuring we create and maintain safe workplaces in our apiaries.”

Scott Williamson – As a youngster doing his Bachelor’s degree in agriculture in Saskatchewan Canada, Scott would get books on beekeeping off the shelves and during the cold winter days, he would read about beekeeping – never really thinking it was possible. After coming to New Zealand to do graduate studies in natural resource management, Scott moved to Nelson and took up a role with central government. One day after chatting with his dentist, a nuc was delivered to his doorstep with the instructions that he’d better learn to keep bees. And so began a 20 year love of bees and beekeeping. Since then, Scott has had the pleasure of being a hobby beekeeper for more than twenty years, being the local sales agent for Ecrotek Limited bee gear for more than five years, teaching beekeeping courses and being the president of the Nelson Beekeeping Club for three years. This love of bees lead him into a partnership with a lovely lady beekeeper and the development of PollenNation Limited, a commercial enterprise specialising in pollen production with hives and suppliers throughout the Top of the South Island and West Coast. They also dabble in other bee product related endeavours. Scott lives in the Nelson hinterland in a log house that keeps him in touch with his Canadian roots.

Mr Kim Leighton has more than 25 years’ experience working in national and international food policy and regulation that aims to identify and control hazards in the food supply and food processing facilities, labelling to enable informed consumer choice, and assess compliance with standards to ensure safety and facilitate trade.
In October 2017 Kim was appointed as Sector Manager, Food and Biologicals at JAS-ANZ to manage the scheme requirements and related stakeholder activities in the food and biologicals sector. Kim undertakes engagement with key industry and regulatory stakeholders, providing advice and analysis of requirements for food businesses and conformity assessment bodies in the delivery of third party assessments. This includes working with the New Zealand Ministry of Primary Industries’ verification requirements of national programmes. Kim also participates in the review and further development of national and international schemes and standards accredited by JAS-ANZ.
Prior to this Kim was the Director, Strategic Policy and Partnerships with New South Wales Food Authority Australia, responsible for the development of state and national food policy and legislation, and the development of programs with local government and industry in delivering safe food at in restaurants, cafes and retail outlets such as the “scores-on-doors” initiative.
He previously held the position of Chief Scientific Officer with Food Industry Asia in Singapore, Director for Policy and Regulation with the Australian Food and Grocery Council in Australia and the Principle Food Scientist in the Western Australian Department of Health.

Mayor Leggett, Current Mayor, Marlborough District Council, was elected in October 2016. He served two terms on Council before he was elected Mayor. Previously he’d chaired Council’s Community & Finance committee and served on Assets & Services, Regional Planning & Development, Audit & Risk, and Regional Transport committees. John sat on the working group reviewing Marlborough’s resource management documents (the Marlborough Environment Plan) and he is a director of Council’s property holding company, MDC Holdings. A lawyer for almost three decades, he is a partner at local firm Wisheart McNabb & Partners. John’s family moved to Blenheim in 1966 and he and his brothers received their schooling here. Sport has been a big part of his life – schoolboy rugby, golf and tennis which he still plays regularly. He also enjoys daily exercise walking his two dogs. With his partner Anne Best, he enjoys watching a rugby match or a movie, or spending time in the Marlborough Sounds.

John Bassett has been a commercial beekeeper for 40 years.  He and his wife Pauline commenced operating commercially in 1977 when they established Waitomo Honey Ltd in Te Kuiti.  At its height this business ran 2000 hives, employed 3 to 4 staff with income derived from local and export honey sales, kiwifruit pollination, and production of queens.
John has been actively involved in the national industry group Apiculture NZ (formerly the National Beekeepers’ Association).   He was founding director of the NZ Bee Genetic Improvement Group, was the foundation chairman of what is now called the UMF Honey Association, and an instigator/member of a Hard Business Network for development of active Manuka honey products.
Now in his 70’s and supposedly semi-retired, John still runs about 250 hives on the Coromandel Peninsula and Hauraki Plains, focussing his time on Manuka honey production and maintaining a strong interest in bee genetics and bee health.  He has recently been joined by a partner in this business.

Dr Xun Li is a palynologist in GNS (Geological and Nuclear Science). Her PhD degree and subsequent research has been in palynology, applied to studies of vegetation history and climate change in China, Indonesia, and New Zealand. Since 2010, she has been heavily involved in honey analysis in GNS, MPI manuka honey standard research, and Trees for Bees projects. Her expertise in melissopalynology includes manuka/kanuka pollen differentiation, identification of overseas honey origin, and pollen profiles of bee pellets and associated bee products.

Stephanie Sopow is a forest entomologist with Scion (New Zealand Forest Research Institute) in Rotorua. She leads Scion’s plant health diagnostic services and is curator of the National Forest Insect Collection. Stephanie’s interests include plant/insect interactions and enhancing New Zealand biosecurity via improved diagnostics, surveillance, and responses to incursions of new species. The recent arrival of giant willow aphid to New Zealand is causing a broad range of impacts not only on host trees, but also on bees and beekeepers, as a result of bees and wasps harvesting the aphid honeydew. Stephanie is investigating biological control of giant willow aphid with a parasitoid as part of the Ministry for Primary Industries’ Sustainable Farming Fund project ‘Management of Giant Willow Aphid’.

Stuart Fraser – After months of planning and work behind the scenes involving the ApiNZ Education & Skills Focus Group members, the Primary ITO, and numerous members of our industry, the apprenticeship qualification will be rolling out to industry this Spring.
This is an exciting development for our industry with the apprenticeship made up of two programmes, one at level 3 and the other at level 4, the details of these are outlined in the tables below.
Make sure you register for the Tuesday afternoon workshop at conference where you can learn plenty more about the Apprenticeship from both the Chair and some members from the ApiNZ Education & Skills Focus Group.

Karl Beckert is the Manager of Department of Conversation’s Permissions Team based in Hamilton. The role of his team is to grant permissions around the country for commercial activities, including beehive placements on conservation land. Previous roles include Manager of Strategy and Operations for the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, Deputy Chief of Staff for the Leader of the Opposition, and Director of an environmental and economic consulting firm in New South Wales. Karl has 10 years of experience of reporting on environmental and conservation issues in both the public and private sector in New Zealand and Australia. His degree is in Economics and Political Theory.

Kate Kember is Manuka Health’s General Manager, Marketing, Research & Development. Kate is an experienced, strategic marketer with more than 15 years’ marketing experience across B2B, Corporate and FMCG brands, holding global and local market roles.
Prior to joining Manuka Health New Zealand, Kate held roles within Fonterra, across multiple areas of the business. She has an extensive range of skills from consumer, service and corporate brand development, leadership and team development to corporate reputation and social responsibility programmes.
At Manuka Health Kate is leading the global marketing programme, ensuring that the company continues to build an exceptional natural healthcare brand, develop new products that bring health and wellness to consumers’ lives, build meaningful connections with consumers, as well as manage the company’s corporate communications. Overseeing the Research and Development function Kate works with her team to deliver the NPD pipeline, the science programme working with universities and research institutes to further the understand and human potential from bee products as well as the global regulatory function for the business.

Clifton King has recently been appointed as the National Compliance Manager at the Management Agency, American Foulbrood Pest Management Plan.
He is a veterinarian and senior biosecurity professional, specialising in surveillance and disease response. He worked for the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry in various roles for a 12-year period from 2000 to 2012. During this time he worked on the 2000 Varroa incursion response, the design of the South Island Varroa surveillance programme, the 2001 outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in the UK, and the foot and mouth disease hoax on Waiheke Island in 2005.
He is responsible for the development of FarmsOnline – a comprehensive register of all New Zealand’s farms to enable MAF to quickly identify and contact New Zealand’s farms in the event of an exotic disease outbreak.
He also led the transformation of MAF’s incursion response systems to more enable more effective management of outbreaks of exotic disease and pests.
He is enjoying the opportunity to work with the honey bee industry again, and is looking forward to working with beekeepers to make changes that will enable beekeepers to further reduce the incidence of AFB in New Zealand.

Fiona O’Brien along with her husband Jeremy are owner operators of Beeline Apiaries Limited, based from Otorohanga.

Fiona is a Dual Member of ApiNZ, and Life Member of Eastern Apiculture Society – USA, and current member of IAPF (International Assn Food Protection).

Jeremy started Beeline Apiaries over 38 years ago, Fiona joined the crew by marrying Jeremy. Both have beekeeping in their blood, and enjoy working with the bees.

Fiona’s Great Grandfather and her Great Uncle had bees in West Auckland, where they sold their Manuka honey of the day to the local chemist for coughs and cold preparations. Jeremy’s Grandfather Cecil turned his hand at robbing ferals in the northland bush, while his other Grandfather kept bees in Blockhouse Bay Auckland.

Dr Linda Newstrom-Lloyd is a botanist and pollination biologist conducting research in New Zealand on the best bee forage to improve the quantity and quality of bee nutrition using native and exotic bee plants. She received her Ph.D. in botany from the University of California at Berkeley, USA and has previously worked on pollination research in California, Mexico, and Costa Rica. She moved to New Zealand in 1994 to conduct research on the New Zealand flora. She has been engaged in the New Zealand beekeeping industry for the last twelve years to promote strategic bee forage plantations that will provide optimum bee nutrition.

Linda is the botanist for the Trees for Bees NZ research program which is starting its ninth year funded primarily by Ministry for Primary Industry Sustainable Farming Grants with the full support of the beekeeping industry, farmers, landowners and council land managers. Numerous scientific and popular articles have been produced by the Trees for Bees team and are available at www.treesforbeesnz.org/publications.

Dale De Luca is a co-founder of Pūtake, an apicultural business, based in Marlborough New Zealand. He leads the bee keeping team assuring Pūtake has the healthiest bees in New Zealand that produce the highest quality honey and hive products each season. His passion for bee’s and their health is at the forefront of his role as well as establishing research, technology and data led initiatives to enable Putake as a leading technology based apicultural business.
Dale came to be a bee keeper through IT & Management Consulting where he has worked over the last 14 years in various large consulting businesses across Asia Pacific region, including being Partner at Deloitte Australia – leading the Analytic Insights team. Most recently he was a Director at EY (Ernst & Young NZ) where he created and led the Enterprise Intelligence team, building a significant capability.
Dales skills relate to all aspects of data management including a significant experience in advanced analytics & data architecture. He has in-depth industry experience spanning Financial Services, Telecommunication, Technology and Government at an enterprise level which he now applies to Pūtake through the development of advanced data gathering technologies, application development and statistical modelling.

Dr Angus J. McPherson is a forestry consultant and farm planting advisor with over 35 years’ experience in forestry. He has worked on farm planting projects throughout New Zealand, covering production forestry, land stabilisation and riparian zones, farm shade and shelter, amenity planting, mānuka plantations and bee forage. With the Trees for Bees Team, he has developed design templates and planning tools to assist farmers and beekeepers to install plentiful high-performance pollen and nectar sources to promote bee health.
Trees for Bees’ goal is to determine the best plants that cover the critical flowering times in spring and autumn and provide the highest protein to boost bee nutrition. We incorporate these high performance plants into effective on-farm and apiary planting designs to alleviate overcrowding and overstocking issues, which will promote a long-term sustainable and profitable apiculture industry, for both pollination services and honey harvesting. Since 2011, twenty seven demonstration farms have been set up and 60,000 bee forage plants established, with bee forage plantations in the North and South Islands. This year, the Trees for Bees Program will be running a workshop on Pollen Profiles and Planting Plans: Strategies for success in an overcrowded environment, and Angus will be available to assist beekeepers and landowners develop bee forage planting plans. See www.treesforbeesnz.org.

Ricki Leahy – I have been beekeeping for about 45years, and like many, started as a hobbyist, and often learned the hard way through my mistakes. One of the mistakes I didn’t make was to build-up our business slowly and ‘safely’ and for some time now have been operating a successful commercial beekeeping enterprise running 2000 plus hives in the Buller District of the South Island. We have always reared our own queens selecting breeders out of our best hives. We operate an RMP processing premises and have always tried to do the best for the bees and all that associates with them.
I was elected as President of the NBA for the three years prior to its rebranding to Apiculture New Zealand and currently have one more year of a three-year term in representing the commercial beekeeping sector on the ApiNZ Board.

John Syme has over 63 years of beekeeping experience, firstly working alongside his father before taking over the business in 1970, selling to Midlands Seed in 2006, continuing to work with them until retiring in 2015.
Engineering has always been a hobby and he has invented and built a number of machines that have benefited the honey industry and has always been available with ideas and advice to beekeepers, insisting firstly to stick to basic good practice and husbandry.

Julie Wilson is National Manager Employer Partnerships at the Department of Corrections. With over 15 years’ experience in recruitment, she has spent the last 3.5 years working with the Department to increase employment opportunities and improve outcomes for those with criminal convictions. Gaining and maintaining employment is often a struggle for those with criminal convictions due to the conviction acting as a barrier, even though they may have the required skills and experience to do the job.
Having employment is a significant contributing factor to desistence from crime. Employees with conviction histories are often the most loyal and productive in the workforce, due to having been given a second chance and the opportunity to prove themselves and lead positive, pro-social lives. Having a job improves self confidence and resilience to grow, allows for better choices and outcomes and contributes positively to a community.
The implementation of the Department’s own recruitment service went live 18 months ago, with 8 Offender Recruitment Consultants. A further 5 were employed 7 months ago. To date, they have placed 1281 offenders into employment.

Byron Taylor – I joined the Apiculture team at AsureQuality (or AgriQuality as it was at the time) 17 years ago in the midst of the biosecurity response to the varroa mite. A lot has changed in the industry over that time and in recent years, I have taken on the role of Apiculture Technical Manager. These days the the AsureQuality Apiculture team provide support services for the industry in areas ranging from disease surveillance and control programs (such as assisting with the AFB Pest Management Plan and MPI’s National Apiculture Surveillance Program) through to bee product RMP program verification and export assurance.

Mandy Armstrong – I have been with Pāmu for over 2 years working on projects related to new product innovation, new land use and commercial partnerships.
I have a Masters degree in Bioprocess Engineering and experience in a range of industries – both corporate & through my own businesses. These include Dairy innovation, water, renewable energy, Maori/Pacific economic development, sustainable building, tourism & adult education.

Hon Damien O’Connor is the New Zealand Government’s Minister of Agriculture. He is also Minister for Biosecurity, Food Safety and Rural Communities and Associate Minister for Trade and Export Growth.
First elected to Parliament in 1993 he has served as a Minister in both the fifth and sixth Labour Governments, and Spokesperson in Opposition for a variety of roles including Agriculture, Biosecurity, Food Safety, Tourism, Immigration and Health.
Minister O’Connor is a passionate advocate for thriving rural communities and believes New Zealand’s ability to sustainably produce high-quality, nutritious food for a growing global population is crucial to the country’s economic future.
His background in farming and adventure tourism drives his view that New Zealand needs well-paid, sustainable jobs and industry value growth for a better future for all.
An active sportsman he has represented Buller at athletics and enjoys skiing, white water rafting, jet boating, motorsports and playing rugby for the New Zealand Parliamentary Team. He has won West Coast Young Farmer of the Year and is also the MP for West Coast-Tasman.

John Kippenberger is Manuka Health’s Chief Executive Officer. John is an experienced CEO and MD specialising in company growth and turnarounds in fast moving consumer goods across a range of international markets.
Prior to joining Manuka Health in February 2016, John was the Managing Director and part owner of Premier Beehive NZ, the high growth NZ FMCG business specialising in quality food products (Beehive, Premier and Freedom Farm brands). At this time John was also a board member of the New Zealand Food and Grocery Council and continues to hold investments in other food companies. In Australia, John spent four years as CEO of the Australian meat and dairy business of George Weston Foods Ltd.
Since joining Manuka Health John has built a strong executive team and continues to drive strong sales growth through a strategy of investing in focused innovation, exciting brand execution and channel expansion in key markets. The company enjoys a pure focus on delivering quality end-to-end bee products expertise and in the past 2 years has made substantial progress in building out its own Apiculture operations. Together with the company’s long and deep beekeeper supplier partnerships this combined platform delivers quality honey to meet Manuka Health’s strong sales growth.
John is positive of the industry’s potential to meet the +$1 billion growth ambition and is motivated to play his part to bring the industry together under this shared vision.

Amanda White lives for the challenge; a technology native, Amanda started her career working within the Department of Corrections and the New Zealand Defence Force. After leaving city life, Amanda joined the New Zealand Electricity Sector heading up ICT and leading change thorough a business transformation project. Currently, Amanda heads up ICT at Taylor Pass Honey Co, her emphasis is on creating business value through technology. She has also been privileged to be the recipient of several awards within the New Zealand ICT industry.

Betty Murie is the Quality Assurance and Compliance Manager (Global) for Wedderspoon Organic NZ, and is based in North Canterbury. With a background in adult education, and over 20 years’ experience in compliance and risk management, encompassing health and safety, social justice, as well as regulatory and international standards compliance, Betty specialises in food quality, food safety, and food defence.
Since joining the Apiculture industry, Betty has provided regulatory oversight in the building of a commercial packing facility and apiary set-up, and in her time off is a hobbyist beekeeper. Betty is a member of both the Apiculture New Zealand Biosecurity and GIA committee and the 2018 ApiNZ conference steering committee. Betty has also recently joined the management committee of the Canterbury Hub.

Dr. Oksana Borowik is a commercial beekeeper and scientist with a special interest in honey bee health and queen breeding. She holds a Ph.D. in molecular phylogenetics from the University of Toronto, Department of Zoology.
Oksana is a member of the Apiculture New Zealand Science and Research Focus Group; serves on the MPI Bee Pathogen Programme Technical Advisory Group; and is the COLOSS Honey Bee Research Association regional coordinator for Oceania (see: http://www.coloss.org/regional-coordinators/).
With a background as a science and nature documentary filmmaker, Oksana was also a producer on the recent BeeAware: Bee Biosecurity Video Series for Plant Health Australia.

Frank Lindsay – I am just a beekeeper.
I have been keeping bees for over forty eight years, starting with a hives and working up to150 and then up to 460 after I took early retirement from Telecom. I am now back down to 160 hives and considering retirement.
I am a life member of our local hobby club, (the Wellington Beekeepers Association), life member of the SNI branch, was secretary of the Southern North Island branch for over 25 years and a life member of Apiculture New Zealand.
I am currently chairman of the Publications Committee for the New Zealand Beekeeper Journal and write the monthly “about the apiary” column which is aimed at the hobbyist and up and coming commercial beekeeper.
Basically I’m a hobby beekeeper with a lot of hives.

Tim Ward is the South Island Operations Manager for Comvita. His team based in Nelson processes all the propolis supplied to Comvita by beekeepers. Although not as critical to apiary finances as honey, propolis is an immensely valuable product in its own right. New Zealand propolis is sought after for export markets, but ensuring the propolis is fit for our discerning overseas customers starts with the very first steps of collection.

Barry Foster is a member of the executive of Apiculture New Zealand and Chairman of the Apiculture New Zealand Science & Research Focus Group including the Technical Focus Group which is involved with pesticides and their effects on honeybees. Barry has some forty years’ experience as a commercial beekeeper plus fourteen years’ experience in the governance on the various boards of Apiculture NZ and the former National Beekeepers Association. His passion is to see the Apiculture Industry develop a sustainable and well funding research program for industry good research funded by a commodity levy. His interests also combine with those of Dr John McLean on honeybee pheromones, and nutrition. Barry is chairman of the research group involved with combatting the Giant Willow Aphid.

Kevin Bryant has been with Corrections for 8 Months in a customer facing role focused on building industries inside prisons. Kevin’s background is in primary industries and industry training. Prior to joining Corrections, Kevin was a self employed consultant working in the area of primary sector strategy development and people capability development. His earlier career was running the Agriculture ITO, then Primary ITO, for 15 years and in sales, marketing and customer engagement with NZ Dairy Board both in New Zealand and offshore.

Haydn Bone has close to 20 years experience with all aspects of propolis, and remains highly enthusiastic about the continued high demand for it. After previously assisting other companies, he now operates Propolis New Zealand Ltd from near Nelson.

Miriana Stephens – Ngāti Rarua, Ngai Te Rangi, Ngāti Ranginui – was born in Motueka and her qualifications include a Bachelor of Arts (NZ History) and a Law Degree. She currently resides in Motueka and has four children. She was awarded the 2016 Aotearoa NZ Māori Woman Business Leader award in recognition of outstanding success and excellence in business.
Miriana is currently a director of Aotahi which is a Māori-owned and managed business that specialises in developing and managing educational programmes in the areas of small business and money management for communities throughout Aotearoa.
Miriana is also a director for Wakatū Incorporation (Wakatū), its subsidiaries and various committees. She is currently coordinating the innovation and research & development programme across the group of Wakatū to create a people, land and water wellness framework as well as a portfolio of food and ingredient applications with scientifically validated health benefits which are aligned with consumer demand and Te Pae Tāwhiti, the 500 year intergenerational plan of Wakatū.
Miriana is a trustee on Te Āwhina Marae in Motueka, Te Rūnanga o Ngāti Rarua, and the Psychotherapists Board of Aotearoa NZ. She is also a member of Nuku ki te Puku (a national Māori Food and Beverage cluster), the MPI Primary Sector Council, an assessor on the MBIE Endeavour Fund Impact Panel and an alumni of Te Hono (NZ agribusiness leaders). www.wakatu.org / www.kono.co.nz

Karin Kos, Chief Executive, ApiNZ – Karin has been Chief Executive of ApiNZ since November 2016. She has a strong background in business communications going back 20 years, covering a variety of roles including senior communications and marketing positions for corporate, government and primary sector organisations. This includes significant primary sector experience, having worked at Seafood New Zealand as its communications manager, and at the New Zealand Wool Board, earlier in her career.
With this experience Karin brings strong advocacy and communication skills to her role as CE, enjoying the opportunity to support ApiNZ members in making sure they have what they need to do business better, and promoting a sustainable apiculture industry.

Andy Baldwin – I have spent most of my working life in manufacturing, beginning with 13 years in the tanning industry as a specialist leather finisher, and then a 7 year stint in Policing before moving into the wine and beer/cider industries.
I started with Wineworks a few months before we began the lean journey in 2007 and have been a lean practitioner ever since. At this time I was running a production line.
I took a 3 year break from wine and worked for DB/Heineken at the Redwood cider plant near Nelson before returning to Wineworks in 2015.
Since then my role has been fulltime around lean implementation and continuous improvement, with a large dose of training and mentoring others part of my work also. I was fortunate last year to attend a lean masterclass with Akinori Hyodo from Toyota Japan. I have also studied instructional design and am currently learning performance technology along with doing a series of advanced classes in writing and teaching writing.
I have just launched a new SOP format for the Wineworks group as a whole, Marlborough, Hawke’s Bay and Auckland . This is based on technical writing in plain English and a preformatted style guide. Currently I am writing a lean masterclass for in-house training of team leaders.
In my spare time I sail, kayak, dive and write historical articles for several publications, or just sit on the deck and drink wine with a BBQ!

Rebecca Remley – As CEO of Wedderspoon Organic – the #1 selling Manuka Honey brand in North America – Rebecca Remley has been instrumental in developing the Manuka Honey category in the U.S. Her stewardship of the brand reflects Wedderspoon’s unique founding ethos of bringing ethical, non-GMO and Organically Certified natural Manuka food & body care products to consumers around the world. Since taking the reins as CEO in 2015, Remley has driven brand awareness through consumer education, innovation, and traceability in the supply chain from hive to home. As demand for Manuka Honey has become one of the fastest growing segments in store aisles, Remley has ensured that Wedderspoon’s products continue to meet the New Zealand government’s stringent standards for Manuka Honey classification while advocating for greater industry transparency. Remley has overseen consistent product innovation and expansion. Wedderspoon currently has an array of Manuka Honey wellness products, including jarred raw Manuka Honey, drops and pops, and the company continues to expand with the launch of new additions to their skincare line, as well as a new Manuka Honey Plus line. Its products can be found in natural food stores, conventional grocery retailers, e-commerce and drug stores in various countries including the U.S., Canada, and U.K., as well as more than 60 countries around the world. Remley brings more than 20 years of leadership, financial, and innovative experience in the natural products industry to her current role as CEO and has been named as one of Progressive Grocer’s 2018 Top Women in Grocery. Prior to Wedderspoon she worked to build and establish brands such as Celestial Seasoning, Terra Chips, Alexia Foods and Julian’s Recipe. Remley received an MBA from Denver University and a BS in Business Administration from the University of Minnesota.