2019 Fellows Richard Foy & Denise Hing

Denise Hing, Group Manager, Strategic Business Development, NZ Customs Service and Richard Foy, DCE Community and Partnerships, Ministry for Ethnic Communities, were joint-fellowship recipients.

Denise Hing and Richard Foy’s report explores how Asian leaders can grow and flourish in the Public Service. To shape their insights they completed research, interviews and focus groups with public and private sector leaders, aspiring leaders, academics, experts and community representatives.

Their findings centre around 5 key themes:

  • We need to accelerate our capability to deliver to the communities we serve and to lead the workforce for the future.
  • Social inclusion is fundamental for ethnic leadership to have any chance of flourishing.
  • Cultural norms are a huge factor.
  • We need to address this at multiple levels, and ‘create the updraft’.
  • We need a Public Service that designs for difference – lays out a unified ‘Welcome mat’.


How Asian leaders can flourish & grow in the New Zealand Public Service [PDF, 2 MB]