Award winners
Congratulations to the recipients of our 2026 Emerging Director, Aspiring Māori Director, and First Steps in Governance Awards.
2026 Emerging Director Awards
Nathan Beaumont MInstD
Nathan started out as a roofer in Timaru before trading the hammer for a career that has seen him test reputations as a journalist, protect them for Cabinet Ministers and build them for one of New Zealand's largest listed companies.
He reckons the roofing was useful training: most reputational damage, like most leaks, starts small and gets worse when it's ignored.
Today, he is Managing Director of The Reputation Hub, working with boards, chief executives and senior leaders on building and protecting reputation.
He spent more than a decade at Chorus, working across media, stakeholder and government relations before becoming Head of Corporate Affairs, where he was the primary adviser to the CEO and Board on reputation. His time at Chorus spanned the ultra-fast broadband rollout, one of the largest infrastructure projects in New Zealand's history.
That career has also shown him how easily reputational risk slips down the agenda when nobody at the table is looking for it and how lasting the consequences can be. It's a big part of why governance has moved from being the context he works in to a discipline he wants to practise directly. He currently serves on two Canterbury school boards.
Nathan is honoured to receive the Emerging Director Award, not least as someone who left school without any qualifications. He hopes his path shows others in the same position that there's more than one way to build a career.
Nathan will serve an internship on the board of Ashburton Contracting Ltd, chaired by Alister Lilley, and will be mentored by Brian Wood DistFInstD.
Jeremy Hanna CMInstD
Jeremy is a Chartered Member of the Institute of Directors, and Chief Operating Officer of Business Canterbury. Jeremy leads a team delivering business support services to more than 2,800 member businesses across the region. He brings a commercial operator's lens to governance, drawn from a career spanning leadership across the private, public and not-for-profit sectors.
Governance roles currently held include Non-Executive Director of Canterbury Regional Business Partners Limited, a Business Canterbury and ChristchurchNZ joint venture delivering business support services, and as a Board Trustee of English Language Partners, where he sits on the Finance & Audit Committee. He also brings governance experience across commercial property, and retail.
Jeremy is drawn to the challenge of finding opportunity inside organisational risk, and to helping complex, multi-stakeholder organisations build financial sustainability. He completed the Company Directors' Course in 2024 and is looking forward to deepening his governance capability through the Emerging Director Award.
Jeremy will serve an internship on the board of Canterbury Scientific Ltd, chaired by Paul Reid, and will be mentored by Abby Foote CFInstD.
2026 Aspiring Māori Director Award
To be announced soon
2026 First Steps in Governance Awards
To be announced soon