Chief Executive

Better HR Co.; Hamilton; On-site; NZD 160,000 - 200,000; Part time

Job summary

Momentum Waikato is seeking a Chief Executive to lead the region’s community foundation and deliver a renewed strategy from Hamilton, with travel across Waikato.

You will lead a small team and partner closely with a Board on strategy, risk and stewardship, growing philanthropic capital through donors and advisers while ensuring operational accountability. This is a 0.8 FTE opportunity with a focus on delivering impact over time.

Qualifications

• A track record of taking a strategy and delivering it through to realisation.
• Established relationships with donors, business owners or private clients, and with the advisers who serve them.
• Senior leadership with full operational accountability, ideally in a small to medium organisation.
• Financial literacy across budgeting, investment and endowment reporting.
• Networks across the Waikato, or a credible plan to build them beyond Hamilton.
• Genuine Te Ao Māori capability, or a commitment to develop it.

Responsibilities

• Build the operating plan behind the renewed strategy, and delivering it end to end.
• Grow the region’s philanthropic capital through donors and their professional advisers.
• Lead a small team, with full operational accountability.
• Keep Momentum close to what the Waikato actually needs, through deliberate community engagement.
• Reporting openly to a Board that stays close to strategy, risk and stewardship.

Skills

Strategic leadership

Donor relations

Stakeholder management

Financial literacy

Te Ao Māori literacy

Job description

Jora New Zealand will close on 16th September 2026. Thank you for being with us, we are cheering you on as you continue your career journey.

• Lead the Waikato’s community foundation, 0.8 FTE
• Strategy into execution
• Hamilton-based, with regional travel

• Lead the Waikato’s community foundation, 0.8 FTE
• Strategy into execution
• Hamilton-based, with regional travel

Momentum Waikato is looking for a Chief Executive to lead the region’s community foundation and deliver a renewed strategy.

Momentum Waikato is the community foundation for the Waikato. They hold and steward the funds entrusted to them by generous people, and they release these funds to the organisations best placed to deliver for Waikato communities. They are not a fundraising organisation, and do not run appeals. Since 2013, they have attracted and gathered over $100 million in donations, gifts and endowment funding, which has fuelled more than 30 place and purpose-based endowment funds and some of the region’s most transformational projects.

The Momentum Waikato, Trust Board is finalising a renewed strategy, and they are seeking someone who can build the operating plan behind it and deliver it through to realisation. Much of the work is brokering relationships, with donors and with the lawyers, accountants, wealth advisers and trustee companies who already hold their trust, then carrying those conversations through to a gift that is documented and funded. You will lead a small and capable team, and partner closely with a Board that stays engaged in strategy, risk and stewardship.

Generosity on its own does not change anything. Getting it to the right place does. That takes patience, judgement and follow-through.

What you will be responsible for

• Building the business plan behind the renewed strategy, and delivering it end to end
• Growing the region’s philanthropic capital through donors and their professional advisers
• Leading a small team, with full operational accountability
• Keeping Momentum close to what the Waikato actually needs, through deliberate community engagement
• Reporting openly to a Board that stays close to strategy, risk and stewardship

A bit more about you

• A record of taking a strategy and delivering it through to realisation
• Trusted relationships with donors, business owners or private clients, and with the advisers who serve them
• Senior leadership with full operational accountability, ideally in a small to medium organisation
• Financial literacy across budgeting, investment and endowment reporting
• Networks across the Waikato, or a credible plan to build them beyond Hamilton
• Genuine Te Ao Māori capability, or a commitment to develop it

Sector experience is an advantage, not a requirement. What matters is that you finish what you start, and that people trust you. This is quiet, patient work, and its results compound for generations.

The Finer Details

• Hours: 32 Hours per week (0.8 FTE). Days and hours are flexible.
• Location: Hamilton, with travel across the Waikato and nationally as required
• Indicative pay: $160,000 to $200,000 for 0.8 FTE
• Application closing date: Wednesday 7 October 2026.

Shortlisting will occur as applications are received. As the saying goes, first in first served.

The Waikato’s generosity already exists. It needs someone who can put it to work. What would you want this region to offer its community in twenty years’ time?

Feel like you don’t meet every single requirement mentioned above?

At Better HR Co., we are dedicated to building diverse, inclusive, and authentic workplaces and boardrooms, so if you’re excited about this role but your experience doesn’t align perfectly with everything we have shared above, we encourage you to apply anyway.

For more information and a confidential conversation about this opportunity, please contact Catherine Stapleton or Linley Steele for more details, 07 242 0447.