Staff - Meet the team

Chris Howe Executive Director

Chris leads the WWF-New Zealand team in its mission to build a future where people live in harmony with nature.
He is responsible for its conservation programme direction and financial accountability. He has been part of the WWF-New Zealand team for over seven years, formerly as its Conservation Director.
Chris’s lifelong commitment to protecting the natural world has seen him campaigning internationally to end commercial whaling, representing WWF at three International Whaling Commission meetings, to directing the campaign to protect New Zealand's endangered Hector's and Maui's dolphins.

Linda Walsh, Payroll and Accounts Officer

Linda has worked for WWF-New Zealand for the past eight years as Accounts and Payroll Officer. She plays a vital role in ensuring the smooth running of financial accounting systems and is responsible for Inland Revenue reporting as well as monitoring the organisation's carbon emissions/carbon neutral status.

Peggy Munn, Operations Manager

Peggy’s role covers finance, human resources and IT. She is responsible for financial reporting to the Board and preparation of the annual financial statements for audit. She also manages the recruitment process for all new staff, ongoing development of good HR practice within WWF and oversight of IT support.

Cristy Cameron, Supporter Services Administrator

Cristy is responsible for administering our supporter recruitment programme, responding to supporter enquires and a myriad of other roles. Together with Winifred she is also responsible for the variety of office tasks that arise each day and helping the WWF staff with all their administrative requirements.

Winifred Clarke, Supporter Services Administrator

Winifred provides overall administrative support to the WWF-New Zealand team with a focus on updating the supporter database, and processing donations received through the post and from our website. As Winifred is at reception she provides the first point of contact for all callers to WWF.

Selar Henderson, Fundraising Manager

Selar, as Fundraising Manager, is responsible for all of WWF-New Zealand's fundraising programmes. This includes communicating with our valued individual supporters, corporate and trust partners, as well as working closely with community-driven fundraising initiatives.

Wendy Barry, Education Programme Leader

Wendy’s role is to lead all of the Education work for WWF. This includes administering the Environmental Education Fund which distributes $60 000 schools and community groups every year; producing Environmental Education resources for teachers ; providing training workshops for other providers; and advocating for sustainability to be central to all young New Zealanders school experience. Her current projects include helping to organize the 2010 NZAEE conference, campaigning for the reinstatement of government funding for Enviroschools, and developing a set of guidelines for producing Education for Sustainability resources.

Rebecca Bird, Marine Programme Manager

Rebecca has been marine programme manager for WWF-New Zealand since January 2007, working on campaigns, policy developments and community initiatives in four key areas. She heads up the work on protecting Maui’s and Hector’s dolphins and other native threatened species, including sea lions, seabirds and sharks. She also leads the Antarctic and Southern Ocean programme to ensure the ecosystem’s integrity is preserved and seabirds and other wildlife are protected; on sustainable fisheries to reduce bycatch and encourage sustainable fishing practices, including managing WWF-NZ’s involvement with the Marine Stewardship Council; and advocating for a network of marine protected areas to preserve the nation’s marine environment and biodiversity.

Victoria Travers, Maui's dolphin education coordinator

Victoria joined WWF in May 2008 and her role takes her into classrooms throughout the Auckland region, talking with children and teachers about the threats Maui’s dolphins face, and importantly what they can do to help save them. She has a background marine ecology and education, and has used her knowledge and passion to successfully recruit six surf life saving clubs along the North Island’s west coast to join WWF-New Zealand’s Maui’s sightings network.

Gemma McGrath, Hector’s dolphin community coordinator

Gemma has a broad role that takes her to classrooms, community halls and marae throughout the South Island, encouraging people to learn about Hector’s dolphins and take action to help protect local populations.

She is the driving force behind Music 4 Maui’s, a Kiwi music CD devoted to raising awareness and funds to help protect Maui’s and Hector’s dolphins. She has also recently worked with the Bannockburn wine-making community in central Otago, who were so inspired by WWF’s work to save the dolphins they have donated a top vintage Pinot Gris to help fund these vital protection measures.

Jenny Riches, Marketing and Communications Manager

Jen Riches Marketing and Communications Manager WWF-New Zealand

What do communications and marketing people actually do? Like all WWF staff, ours come to work to protect our living planet.

Jen works with our programme team to get campaign messages out - from asking people to support action on climate change through WWF's Earth Hour, to giving our Government the message that New Zealanders want them to save Hector's dolphins from extinction. She also works with our fundraising manager to keep our supporters well-informed about the big environmental issues that we tackle on their behalf, and manages WWF's brand.

Rosa Argent, Communications Manager

Rosa is WWF-New Zealand's permanent Communications Manager, currently on maternity leave.

Erinn Piller, Communications Manager

Erinn has been working with the WWF-Canada team for the past 2 ½ years and now joins WWF-New Zealand as the Communications Manager providing maternity leave cover for the role. Her role includes helping manage the WWF brand as well as getting WWF’s conservation messages out to a wide range of audiences - including supporters and decision-makers - through traditional and new media, online social networking sites and the WWF-New Zealand website.

Lee Barry, Earth Hour 2010 Project Manager

Lee is part of WWF-New Zealand’s Climate Change team and is leading the Earth Hour 2010 campaign. We are aiming to build on 2009’s successful event which saw over half of all New Zealanders take part. An experienced project manager, Lee covers all the bases for the Earth Hour campaign and is the first point of contact for all enquiries whether about participation, partnerships, business involvement, or t-shirts!

Peter Hardstaff, Climate Change campaigner

Peter joined WWF-New Zealand in August 2008. As Climate Change Programme Manager, Peter’s job is to develop and implement a strategy so that WWF-New Zealand can play a constructive role in encouraging individuals, businesses and the government to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to climate change. This involves working with a variety of partners in New Zealand as well as colleagues in the WWF international network.

Marc Slade, Community Programme Manager

Marc is responsible for WWF-NZ' s terrestrial and freshwater conservation programme, including administering the Habitat Protection Fund. Marc is also developing a work programme around conservation at a landscape scale, working with communities, landowners, councils and businesses to restore our "living landscapes" so that they can help our indigenous biodiversity adapt to climate change. Marc is also responsible for WWF' s international programme, developing partnerships with partner WWF offices and communities in Pacific countries to address climate change and biodiversity loss.

Bob Zuur, Marine Advocate

Bob is a marine biologist in WWF- New Zealand’s marine protection team.

Ruchika Jayatilaka, Fundraising Manager (Supporter Relations)

Ruchika is responsible for establishing and maintaining quality relations with our supporters, through various WWF-New Zealand's fundraising programmes. Together with Selar, she also carries out annual fundraising plans to help grow the organisation's income and supporter base.

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