Andrew Slater Chief People Officer, Te Whatu Ora As Chief People Officer, Andrew leads a team comprising several functions including HR, payroll, health and safety, wellbeing and wellness, security and protective services, communications and media, employee relations and emergency management. Andrew has always been passionately committed to improving peoples’ wellbeing. Throughout his career he has been committed to changing the country’s health system from the inside out and growing our future health leaders. At age 32, Andrew was Aotearoa’s youngest CEO in the health sector when he became the founding Chief Executive Officer of Whakarongorau Aotearoa, a social enterprise providing national telehealth services, established in 2015. Andrew’s previous roles in the health sector have been in transformation, strategy and human resources roles in St John Ambulance, in primary care and in the private sector. With his passion for improving health outcomes, he’s been a regular visitor to innovative health and government agencies globally and was involved in a UN project looking at the reduction of Youth Suicide in developing countries. He was a Board member of the eMental Health International Collaborative. Andrew’s dedication to solving inequitable access to health care resulted in the ground-breaking creation of Te Taki o Autahi in 2022, a limited partnership agreement between three iwi organisations and Whakarongorau Aotearoa. Providing whānau-centred telehealth services from iwi-run contact centres, the partnership has generated positive social and financial impacts in communities and regions that experience high levels of unemployment and health inequity, while delivering improved health outcomes. Te Whatu Ora’s Chief People Officer since April 2023, Andrew’s ambition is that the health workforce is enabled and empowered to do everything possible to help make Aotearoa’s health system the best in the world by attracting, developing, engaging and retaining the best health professionals nationally and globally.

Dr Samantha (Sam) Murton is the President of The Royal New Zealand College of General Practitioners, a working Wellington GP, and Senior Lecturer and Trainee Intern Co-Convenor at University of Otago, Wellington. Sam advocates for the profession at a national level, and she does this while maintaining practical experience that keeps her advice relevant and realistic. In the 2021 Queen’s Birthday Honours, Sam was appointed as a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit (MNZM) for her services to medical education, especially general practice. She is willing and equipped to represent the challenges that face general practitioners and their patients, bring GPs together nationally, and champions the role of the expert general practitioner who works in the broader primary care team. Sam is the current Chair of Council of Medical Colleges

Kiri Rikihana, (LLB/B Soc. Sci) Te Āti Awa ki Whakarongotai, Ngāti Raukawa ki te Tonga, Ngāti Toa Rangatira Deputy CEO, Te Kaunihera Rata o Aotearoa The Medical Council of New Zealand Kiri is the Deputy Chief Executive of the Te Kaunihera Rata o Aotearoa The Medical Council of New Zealand, her responsibilities include notifications, legal investigations, and education and accreditation of medical practitioners. She is the former Executive Director of the Australian and New Zealand College of Anaesthetists and General Manager Mortality Review Committees at the Health Quality and Safety Commission. Kiri sits on the Specialist Education Accreditation Committee for the Australian Medical Council, and the Board of Directors of Tu Ora Compass Health Primary Health Organisation. Kiri has led organisational and culture change in several organisations to advance knowledge and confidence in health equity, Māori health, Te Tiriti o Waitangi and cultural safety.

A/Prof Rhea Liang is a general and breast surgeon on the Gold Coast of Australia, a RACS surgical educator, diversity advocate, and Clinical Sub-Dean at Bond University. Her advocacy for women in medicine extends back 30 years, when she spoke up as a medical student about the lack of diverse women doctors to meet the sexual health needs of immigrant communities and was then tasked with developing (and delivering, as a 3rd year student!) the lecture addressing this issue. She has since continued to advocate, speak, and research in this area. An example of her work- https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(18)32612-6/fulltext.