Chrissie Hape thought her New Year Honour must have been meant for long-serving leader Ngahiwi Tomoana. Photo / NZME
Chrissie Hape thought her New Year Honour must have been meant for long-serving leader Ngahiwi Tomoana. Photo / NZME
When Ngāti Kahungunu Iwi chief executive officer Chrissie Hape received notice asking if she’d accept a New Year Honour, she thought it must have been meant for long-serving leader Ngahiwi Tomoana.
He was the founding chairman of the iwi’s incorporation and was in the hot seat for 26 years untilbeaten in this year’s iwi elections.
She’s been the chief executive just four years, since 2018, and on the score of her own CV wonders if it is enough to warrant being made a member of the New Zealand Order of Merit (MNZM).
“I can’t believe I’d get it just on that, and it came as a complete surprise,” she said at home in rural Hawke’s Bay between Omahu and Pukehamoamoa, where she wasn’t really taking a complete holiday break, but was still hands-on and still checking emails every morning.
She had to accept, because had it been Tomoana, she conjectured, he would have “refused it - again”.
It wasn’t just the last four years that gets her a day at Government House, where she will proudly go for her investiture in 2023.
Now 61, and from Kahuranaki and Houngarea stock, she’s been in social work and iwi service fields since she left Hastings Girls’ High School at the age of 17 and became a “cadet” with the Department of Social Welfare, the historical form of the agency now part-denoted by the name Oranga Tamariki – Ministry for Children.
She has now had more than 25 years of management experience within the government and community sectors, including roles with government department MBIE in Wellington and Te Taiwhenua o Heretaunga in Hastings.
Ngāti Kahungunu Iwi Incorporated CEO Chrissie Hape, made a member of the New Zealand Order of Merit (MNZM) in the New Year Honours. Photo / Supplied
It was in 2017 that she took a role as iwi general manager at a time of transitional change in its aspirations to foster the wellbeing of members and more widely the community and environment in which they live.
She holds various other leadership roles, including being a board member of primary health organisation Health Hawke’s Bay, and of the New Zealand Institute of Skills and Technology.
According to the accompanying notes, she has focused on strengthening partnerships between government, community and iwi and facilitating improved health, education, social and wellbeing outcomes, as well as the reduction of inequalities within the communities.
