Gael Surgenor to support Local Government review, leaving The Southern Initiative

Gael Surgenor is stepping away from her role as General Manager of The Southern Initiative (TSI), after having spent the last seven years building the Auckland Council’s innovation team to help tackle some of south Auckland’s most pressing social and economic challenges.

But there’ll be no time for rest as she moves into her next challenge as a member of the Review Panel for the Future for Local Government, which she was appointed to by Local Government Minister Nanaia Mahuta in April.

“I will be leaving the most amazing team and work I have had in my career,” says Gael. “It truly has been an honour to lead an incredible team and I thank them all for their friendship, collegiality, support and hard mahi during my time with TSI.”

Since joining TSI in late 2014, Gael has overseen a successful portfolio of work on social, economic, public health, wellbeing, innovation and technology. All initiatives are focused on enhancing the prosperity and wellbeing of south Auckland communities and, in more recent years, for west Auckland too.

“Our success has been built around accepting that there is no silver bullet when it comes to making long-term transformative change in Auckland, instead taking integrated approaches which are done in partnership with communities.”

Gael says TSI is in prime position to help south and west Auckland navigate the new economic environment of a post-pandemic world.

“The Southern Initiative was born from the failures of the global financial crisis when south Auckland did not recover and equitably benefit from the so called “rock star economy” and Auckland’s growth.”

“The post-pandemic world will be similar to that of 2008 but with the great innovators and leaders in TSI who are born, raised or reside in south Auckland and are passionate about seeing a more inclusive and fair economy where communities thrive, I am more hopeful.”

Tania Pouwhare will take over as General Manager and says TSI wouldn’t be regarded as an international leader in social innovation without the leadership that Gael has shown during her tenure.

“Gael is the heart and soul of The Southern Initiative,” says Tania.

“Her leadership has been paramount. She’s brokered a wide range of deep partnerships across the public, private and community sectors, and it is thanks to her mentoring and unwavering support of building distributed leadership across the team that Gael can feel confident she’s left this important work in good hands. We all know that her experience and knowledge will be an incredible asset to the Review into the Future for Local Government.”