2024 King's Birthday Honours recognition

We are very pleased to share that our Board Co-Chair, Lorraine Mentz, was made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit (MNZM) in the 2024 King's Birthday Honours List.

Lorraine was recognised for her contribution to education and philanthropy. The citation stated:

"Ms Lorraine Mentz led the committee of civic leadership programme Future Auckland Leaders for 13 years and was the co-founder and Chief Executive of the Springboard Trust from 2003 to 2019.

Springboard Trust works within the education sector to transform schools by developing individuals' and teams' strategic leadership, bringing together leaders from the education, private, public and philanthropic sectors. Through Springboard programmes, principals and leaders receive voluntary coaching from private and public sector leaders. More than 500 school leaders have since benefitted from the strategic coaching, resulting in better educational outcomes for thousands of learners nationwide. The Springboard Trust initially focused on low-income area primary schools and has since expanded to both primary and secondary schools nationally. In the early days of the Trust, Ms Mentz was the only paid staff member, often working in her spare time. She was pivotal in attracting longer term, sustainable funding from various foundations and building partnerships between schools and the private sector.

She is currently Chief Executive of the Hugh Green Foundation and established the Education Partnership and Innovation Trust, bringing together philanthropic funders with social impact organisations and schools to tackle inequity in education. Ms Mentz also supports education initiatives on the Board of Te Kete Hono and as Chair of the Brian Wilkinson Charitable Trust."

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