Distinguished Alumni Awards

Sir Geoffrey Peren Award

DR DICK HUBBARD, ONZM

Paeroa-born Dr Hubbard graduated from Massey with a Bachelor

of Technology (Food) in 1970. He worked as a research scientist

for the Co-Operative Dairy Company in Hamilton developing

specialised powders for the baking trade, then spent several

years managing the Food Processing Factory in Niue.

After working in management roles, including chief executive,

at Tasti Food Products for 13 years, he and wife Diana Reader

set up Hubbard Foods in 1988. The company gained prominence

for its promotion of socially responsible business perspectives.

Dr Hubbard founded the New Zealand Businesses for Social

Responsibility (now the Sustainable Business Network), was

chair of the New Zealand National Parks and Conservation

Foundation and a supporter of Outward Bound. He was Mayor

of Auckland from 2004 to 2007 and member of the Massey

University Council 2003-06.

He was conferred with an honorary Doctor of Science in 1999.

In 2017 Hubbard Foods was sold to the HFG Group. Dr Hubbard

was quoted as saying “after making three billion bowls of

mueslis and cereals over 30 years, it was time to hand over the

reins to a younger generation”.

In recent years her has given his time as an Ambassador for the

Massey University Foundation’s Refectory Restoration project.

Distinguished Service Award

DR MAHSA MCCAULEY

Dr McCauley graduated with a PhD in computer science in

2013. Her vision to address the gender imbalance in science,

technology, engineering and mathematics fields, to remove

virtual barriers and to facilitate equal opportunities has fuelled

her work to encourage young New Zealand girls to consider

what a career in technology offers. In 2014 she founded She

Sharp, which runs networking and development events each

year for secondary school girls and women who are tertiary

students and industry professionals.

In her role as a senior lecturer at Auckland University

of Technology’s School of Computer, Engineering, and

Mathematical Sciences, she is a recognised leader in artificial

intelligence and machine learning, including researching

how these fields will revolutionise our future. Last year she

was a keynote speaker at AI-DAY and is currently an external

technical adviser to to AI business advice company AIDER

and online writer support network The Story Mint.

The lack of diversity in the technology sector is becoming

widely recognised as a significant issue, and as a result there

is a growing call to action to address the situation. Mahsa’s

tireless work in advocating diversity in this sector has

impacted thousands.

In 2018 she was invited as a visiting professor to the University

of St. Bonaventure in New York in 2018, to teach an intensive

week of AI. Her work in this field was covered on prime-time

news in New York while she was there, including her passion

for encouraging more girls to consider a future career in

technology.

DEA

Distinguished Young Alumni Award

BROOKE ROBERTS

Ms Roberts graduated in 2013 with a Master of Finance with

distinction, worked as a marketing assistant before going on

to finance, product and marketing roles at AJ Park, Kiwibank

and Xero.

She wanted to start her own business and combine her

twin interests in marketing and finance. Her dream started

to gain momentum when she met a group of like-minded

entrepreneurs. The group of seven, including two other

Massey alumni, Richard Clark and Sonya Williams, founded

Sharesies, a sharemarket investment company, in 2017.

She says the philosophy behind Sharesies is to create a level

playing field for investors regardless of how much money they

have and remove some of the jargon that causes nervousness.

“We wanted to give someone with five dollars the same

investment opportunities as someone with $500,000. With the

technology available today, there’s no reason why access to

wealth development should be so unequal.” Another reason

was to encourage more New Zealanders to invest in markets.

At present 20 per cent do compared with 30 per cent of

Australians and 50 per cent of Americans.

Two years later the company has 24 staff and more than

36,000 investors, many of them doing so for the first time.

We all got together because we knew we wanted to start our own Two years on, Brooke says Sharesies is going from strength to strength.“We started with seven founders, six of us full time. We now have 24 staff and we’re still growing.
We have over 36,000 Kiwi investors who have invested over $38 million. What’s great is a lot of that is money that probably wouldn’t have been invested otherwise.”Brooke The opportunities need to be shared a lot more.

That’s why we created Sharesies—to make it really easy for people to get into investing, and to help them feel confident and motivated as investors. The minimum investment is five dollars, and Brooke says their model has attracted a lot of first-time investors, who are learning about finance as they use Sharesies. So much of learning is by doing. When you hear the news and link that to what’s happening with your investment, you start to see how everything happening in society feeds into business and the economy. It’s really exciting for people to start to see those linkages.”Brooke says that while 50 percent of people in the United States and 30 percent of Australians own shares, only around 20 percent of New Zealanders are shareholders.

She says the connections she made while studying helped

enormously. “The friendships that I made in my hostel and

classes helped me personally but also professionally. I’ve now

got friends in all different disciplines.”

Distinguished Achievement Award

KATE HAWLEY

Costume designer Kate Hawley graduated with a Diploma

in Visual Arts and Design in 1992 from what was then

Wellington Polytechnic. She worked in local productions and,

in 1996, received a Television New Zealand Scholarship and

assistance from Wellington City Opera to study at the London’s

Motley School of Theatre Design. Less than a decade later

her career took off with film credits including On A Clear Day,

The Ride, Pacific Rim, Crimson Ring and The Hobbit, along

with numerous other costume and set design credits ranging

across film, television, theatre and opera in Europe, the United

States, Australia and New Zealand.

She worked again with Peter Jackson’s untitled Dreamworks

project and his 2009 film The Lovely Bones as well as episodes

of The Lord of the Rings television series.

Ms Hawley’s awards include the Gold Key Award from the

Bretislav Film Festival for her designs for the Channel 4/BBC

production of T DANCE, the Queen Elizabeth II Arts Council

Award for Opera Studies, the Prague Quadrennial 99 Award

for Emerging Young Artists, and the Television New Zealand

Young Achievers Award.

In 2013 she was into Massey University’s College of Creative

Arts’ Hall of Fame.