Farewell, thank you and congratulations to Paul Atkins
Since January of this year, we’ve been privileged to have the guidance of Paul Atkins as the Chair of the Board of Trustees for the Hillary Institute and Edmund Hillary Fellowship. Paul’s leadership and expertise have been invaluable, particularly during a time of adjustment and transition in a post-COVID reality, but a new adventure awaits him which we can’t help but be incredibly excited about.
In November, Paul will be taking the helm of the Royal Society Te Apārangi as their new Chief Executive. The Royal Society’s mission is to advance and promote research and scholarly activity in the pursuit of knowledge. For those of you who’ve met Paul, you’ll know this is an incredible opportunity for both him and the Royal Society, and for Aotearoa’s science, technology and humanities sector.
As a consequence, Paul will be stepping down as Chair of the Edmund Hillary Fellowship and the Hillary Institute in October. Paul will also be stepping down from his roles as CEO of Zealandia and Chair of the MacDiarmid Institute of Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology before joining the Royal Society.
His wealth of leadership and governance experience have made a significant impact on the Institute and the Fellowship within a short time, helping us to unite our purposes and provide hands-on support to the team managing the challenges of a post-COVID reality.
I am personally going to greatly miss Paul’s support and guidance. He is one of those rare leaders who combines great skill with true humility and attitude to service. His generosity of time and advice has been critical to me as a new CEO, and the team, as we work to redefine the role of the Fellowship going forward. However his leadership through transition has set us up well to decide the leadership and governance needed for this next chapter.
Paul describes his time with the Hillary Institute and Edmund Hillary Fellowship as a privilege, albeit rather more briefly than he had expected.
“Both organisations have amazing leadership and I am very excited by where this will take them in the coming years. I look forward to remaining in close contact.” - Paul Atkins
Founding Director of the Hillary Institute, Mark Prain, says “Losing Paul quite so early in his tenure with us wasn’t in anyone’s plan, but he has done essential and highly significant mahi in the Leadership transition we have undertaken over 2021 to frame our next chapters. Te Apārangi will be very well served and we warmly wish Paul well in this flagship role.”
Paul has previously served as Chair of Mevo which was New Zealand’s first electric car share company, as Managing Director and Chair of nanomaterials company Boutiq Sciences, as Inaugural Chair of the New Zealand Smart Grid Forum, and as a founding Director of the biomedical device company Ferronova.
Please join us in wishing Paul the best for his incredibly exciting new role, and thanking him for the time he spent as our Chair. He will be with us until October and actively supporting our recruitment of a new Board chair.
We are working with Paul and the Board on a shortlist of strong candidates for the Chair role.
Rosalie Nelson
Chief Executive - Edmund Hillary Fellowship