Judges

Professor Rouben Azizian

Centre for Defence and Security Studies, Massey University

Professor Rouben Azizian is Director of the Centre for Defence and Security Studies, Massey University, Honorary Professor of the New Zealand Defence Force Command and Staff College and Editor-in-Chief of National Security Journal. Previously he worked at the US Defence Department’s Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies (APCSS) in Honolulu.

During his teaching tenure at APCSS, Professor Azizian also designed and coordinated regional security sector workshops and national security strategy development activities. His areas of expertise are security sector governance, national security strategy, international security and diplomacy. Professor Azizian has published several books as well as numerous book chapters, journal articles and working papers on international and national security topics.

Mike Hulme

Profit Protection Forum

Mike is an experienced Retailer with over 30 years’ experience working for some of New Zealand’s most recognised retail brands.  He has recently been specialising in Loss Prevention, Profit Protection, Risk and Safety.

Mike plays a crucial role in maintaining a safe and secure environment for businesses while safeguarding financial assets and profit results.  He achieves this through a combination of strategic thinking, operational knowledge, and practical implementation to effectively prevent or reduce risk and losses.

He builds strong industry relationships through vendors to assist with keeping innovation and learning at the forefront of consideration, whilst grounding current technologies in training and development to ensure effectiveness is maintained and optimised.

Mike is an industry leader in risk and data analysis, Investigations, Auditing, Emergency response, conflict resolution, and implementation of security technologies, and successfully incorporates these into the fabric of business decisions and solutions.

Mike’s vision is to use these skills in a directorship role in the future, being able to provide a unique view, and skillset to reduce risk and adequately respond to critical situations and events. Having this knowledge in the boardroom will be of significant benefit for any business given the risk landscape predicted for the future.

Ngaire Kelaher CPP PSP

ASIS New Zealand

Ngaire is the ASIS International Regional Vice President for region 15A which includes New Zealand. Ngaire is also the Assistant Regional Vice President for Learning and Certification for Region 15 which includes New Zealand and Australia and was also the previous ASIS New Zealand Chapter Chairperson.

Ngaire has been in the security industry since 1995 beginning as a security guard, then conducting training and assessing against industry standards, conducting security audits against codes of practice, delivery security-related client specific programmes, and is currently the Security Risk and Training consultant for RISQ New Zealand / Bespoke Security Group.

Ngaire has been an ASIS International member since February 2005, for 18 years and was the first female Chairperson of the ASIS New Zealand Chapter. She is also the first female to have double ASIS International certifications, the Certified Protection Professional (CPP) and Physical Security Professional (PSP).

Mark Richards

ISRM

I was born in in Johannesburg South Africa in the 80’s. Later in life I studied International Marketing Management but in 2004 I launched Moscow 282 event space in Johannesburg City. That was my first exposure to event security. Security in Johannesburg inner city was high risk and all security was armed. We had to move cash and bar stock but more importantly, provide a safe environment for thousands of our customers and our staff.

In 2007, I decided to travel and landed up in New Zealand. Three months later I was at the Royal New Zealand Police College and by December 2007, I graduated as a Sworn Police Officer with the New Zealand Police. After six years of front line policing, dealing with serious incidents, protests and travelling to Christchurch during the 2011 Earthquakes.

In 2013, I started my career in close protection. This lead to me specialising in close protection and event security. After providing protection to three New Zealand Prime Ministers, I moved to the private security industry. After taking up my first contract with a Bank, I later accepted a full time role with the U.S State Department as their first local investigator based in Auckland, New Zealand. My time with the U.S State Department was great. I got to work and train with specialist in the USA, work on investigations with various U.S agencies and provide diplomatic protection to many high level members of the U.S Government who travelled to New Zealand. During the Covid lockdowns in New Zealand, I moved back tot eh corporate world or banking as a Executive Protection Manager and Events Security Manager.  I have had the pleasure of international training and travelling in my career. I have also had the opportunity o train and work with some of the best in our industry on a global level.

Dr Bridgette Sullivan-Taylor

New Zealand Security Sector Network

Bridgette has expertise in strategic-decision making in the context of uncertainty and developing organisational resilience (OR) strategy that has helped inform policy and practice in both NZ and the UK.

Bridgette has worked on strategic projects funded by the UK Cabinet Office Civil Contingencies Secretariat focused on public-private partnership and developing OR capabilities to a range of extreme events and threats. Projects included: development of the OR BS standard, review of the CCA Act (2004), developed the National Risk Register and Regional Resilience Forums; developed resilience scenarios and multi-agency responses as an all of government approach linked to security sector related remits to mitigate the impact of extreme events. Member of the UK Government Emergency Planning College (York) and Business Continuity Institute (UK) to develop OR capabilities.

At the University of Auckland she has continued as a subject matter expert driving evidence-based change through thought leadership avenues to executive education participants and internal departments; UoA Business Recovery Programme Consultant; informed the strategic plan; providing the business recovery leadership team, through the impacts of COVID-19 and the global pandemic, creating a framework to support during the recovery phase, including supporting the Risk Office and revising the Enterprise Risk Framework.

David Turner

RiskNZ

David Turner is a senior business executive and trusted advisor with over 20 years’ of experience in the risk management industry.

David joined the Australian Army and became part of a specialised team where he deployed to East Timor in 1999. After the military contracted to varied private and government organisations in leadership, risk and project roles; he opened his own company that advised on risk management and provided personnel for major projects including: BHPB, Rio Tinto, Multiplex, Police, Australian Elections, and also CHOGM 2011 working with State and Federal Police.

David was born in NZ and returned in 2016 to work on the Transdev Wellington rail network transition. He now lives in New Zealand permanently and has worked with Deloitte, KPMG, Defence, MOJ and PwC. He brings a unique blend of expertise across diverse areas with a focus on risk management of human behaviour – one of the more complex, dynamic, and often overlooked areas of the industry.