Our Team

Coming from a successful HR career in large organisations, Alan founded Positive People in 1994 and since then has assisted and supported a range of different sized companies across many industries. Alan’s strengths lie in his experience and ability to identify the specific HR interventions needed for each organisation to optimise their people contribution. This may take the form of organisation development, cultural change, performance improvement, employment relations or conflict resolution. He has the knowledge and experience to help organisations be successful.

Alan drives the quest for client satisfaction through Positive People always delivering a quality service with urgency and commitment.

Alan is a chartered member of the Human Resources Institute of New Zealand

Toni is a senior HR and business leader with more than a decade at Positive People, including several years operating at General Manager level. She specialises in aligning people strategy with business direction, helping organisations lift performance, strengthen culture, and lead through change.

Her experience spans greenfields environments through to established medium and large New Zealand businesses, giving her a strong commercial lens and the ability to translate strategy into practical action. Toni has partnered closely with senior leaders on organisational design, capability uplift, and transformation initiatives that deliver measurable results.

She holds a Graduate Diploma in Strategic HR Management and is a qualified NZQA workplace assessor. Toni is known for her pragmatic, people-focused approach and her ability to help leadership teams create clarity, alignment, and accountability at every level of the business.

Chanel has over 12 years’ experience leading projects and day-to-day management across Human Resources, Learning & Development, Supply Chain and Logistics, in the UK and New Zealand. Coupled with a Bachelor of Business Management Studies, she brings her practical HR generalist and line management capability to any organisational issue or opportunity.

Chanel’s strengths lie in her ability to listen and tailor solutions to her clients’ needs. She is naturally drawn to performance management, learning & development, and coaching and recruitment. She gains huge satisfaction seeing organisations and individuals grow to realise their true potential and the flow on effect to the business’s bottom line.

She works with Managers in a collaborative style to get the best results for both the individuals and the business.

Casey has a strong HR generalist background in both sole charge roles as well as larger HR teams in Ireland, London and New Zealand. She has also worked in senior operational and people management roles in New Zealand. Casey enjoys building strong, collaborative working relationships with clients, focusing on identifying and resolving issues and adding value to organisations. She has a wide breadth of experience across employee relations, performance management, change programmes, leadership development, training design and delivery, recruitment, policy work and employee wellbeing. Casey is particularly passionate about nurturing highly engaged and high performing teams and delivering long term, cultural change.

With a background in both HR consulting and internal HR business partner roles, Kelly brings comprehensive generalist experience spanning professional services, SMEs, engineering, not-for-profit and regulatory environments.

Approachable and a good listener she enjoys building relationships and working collaboratively to find solutions to her clients’ unique challenges. Kelly’s strengths lie in Employee Relations, from talent development and performance improvement through to change management and disciplinary processes, and in advising, drafting or reviewing policies and procedures to make them a best-fit for the culture and needs of an organisation.

Additionally, Kelly is a Myers & Briggs (MBTI) Qualified Assessor, enabling her to conduct individual or team assessments and also run workshops within organisations.

Nicola is passionate about people, believing that a business thrives when it has the right people doing the right things for the right reasons. She has solid experience across the full HR remit, including recruitment, retention, remuneration, employee relations, organisational development, cultivating culture, and HRIS design and implementation. Nicola delights in learning about each business she works with and has worked across the full organisational spectrum, including SMEs, non-profits and with large corporates. This gives her a rounded perspective and she is adept at tailoring her People approach to suit the needs of each business and its employees. Nicola is also committed to giving back to the community and volunteers in a number of roles. These roles enable her to connect with people in the community and develop skills in areas outside of HR.

Nicola brings positive energy, sound reasoning and compassion to everything she embarks on.

Leanne has over 18 years HR generalist experience, working across the full HR remit. With a background in law, she has extensive knowledge of NZ employment law with a strong focus on employment relations and change management. She has worked as an HR Advisor for large companies and more recently as an HR consultant for small to medium sized businesses. She has managed large scale restructures, has extensive experience dealing with disciplinary issues, performance management and personal grievances as well as drafting and reviewing employment agreements, policies and procedures.

Leanne enjoys getting to know her clients and their business, is quick to build strong working relationships, and works to provide straight forward advice and solutions. She wants to make a difference by supporting managers to understand and negotiate the complexities of employment law, workplace dynamics and how to motivate and get the best out of their team.

Leanne is a licensed Private Investigator registered with the Department of Justice. This allows her to credibly and independently investigate complex in-house employment matters for our clients.

With over 15 years of experience in recruitment and a strong foundation in HR, Leonie is passionate about connecting businesses with the right talent to drive long-term success. Leonie has worked across both New Zealand and Australia, servicing white and blue collar roles at all levels and across a diverse range of industries. Leonie finds real satisfaction in placing hard-to-fill roles, identifying and resolving recruitment blocks, and embedding proactive, strategic hiring practices that support sustainable growth.

Leonie enjoys building personable, genuine partnerships with clients who value her flexibility, balance of efficiency and thoroughness, and great intuition!

Having worked within multinational and privately owned businesses Becky brings over 20 years HR experience to her profession with a strong emphasis on creating workplace cultures that embrace innovation, collaboration and professional growth.

Throughout her career Becky has demonstrated her expertise across various aspects of HR Management including change management, employment legislation, employee relations, engagement and policy development. She is passionate about enabling organisations to deliver on their strategy through embracing change, leveraging technology and promoting a positive employee experience.

Becky enjoys transforming traditional HR practices and values establishing strong relationships through her ability to build trust and rapport with employees and key stakeholders at all levels of an organisation.

Trudy is an experienced Human Resources generalist, with 20 years’ experience working in medium and large businesses across multiple industries including manufacturing, transport, health care, entertainment and not for profit. She has a wide breadth of experience across the full HR remit including recruitment, employment relations, performance management, remuneration/ benefits, change management, and policy development.

Trudy has a pragmatic and down to earth approach and she enjoys building strong working relationships and working as a trusted business partner to design and deliver relevant and practical HR solutions and initiatives. She is passionate about upskilling and empowering managers and business leaders to enable them to get the best of out their teams and create an engaged, productive and client focused workforce.

Kimberley combines legal acumen with HR expertise in her consultancy work, delivering a unique skill set to foster thriving teams. An enrolled barrister and solicitor, Kimberley’s experience includes mediating employment disputes through MBIE’s mediation service, and generalist HR working across the full remit of HR areas.

Kimberley is passionate about supporting workplaces to provide an environment where their people can truly thrive in their mahi, enabling growth and success for both the organisation and the people who work there. She brings expertise in interest-based problem-solving and a commitment to achieving win-win outcomes wherever possible.

Keeping a focus on your organisation’s priorities, Kimberley will work with you to ensure your people approach is aligned with your organisation’s strategic goals and helping to keep you moving in the right direction.

Debra is a skilled HR business partner with international and local industry experience. She is a practical, hands-on partner with extensive HR generalist experience and total rewards specialist knowledge. She is particularly interested in translating business strategy into people plans to help organisations grow and develop their talent. She also has wide experience with leadership development and capability building, organisation effectiveness, diversity & inclusion, coaching & mentoring and transformational culture & change management.

Debra has lived and worked in many countries around the world with a special affinity for New Zealand, Singapore and Minnesota. What gets Debra excited about each day is the people she spends time with – clients, colleagues and family. She loves and appreciates the chance to travel, build relationships and meet new people.

For Debra, it all comes down to people – being inspired by them, learning from them and helping create a culture and environment that helps them succeed.

Sarah has a background in Employee Relations. Previously working in internal HR roles at large organisations, Sarah has experience in highly unionised environments. Her bread and butter for the past seven years has been supporting with all things ER, including disciplinaries, performance management, handling complaints and change processes. As a Licensed Private Investigator, registered with the Ministry of Justice, Sarah can conduct independent investigations into complex employment matters.

Sarah is passionate about working with people and enjoys supporting managers and supervisors to address people concerns and get the best out of their teams. She has experience mediating relationship breakdowns and enjoys running sessions to build and improve team culture. Sarah is an approachable people person and is quick to build collaborative and influential relationships to support at all levels. With a background in journalism her strength lies in communication. She believes in a supportive, people focused approach and deals with issues with empathy and professionalism.

Starting her career as a Registered Nurse and working in Injury Management when ACC first privatised, Grace brings 20 years of Health Safety and Wellbeing experience across manufacturing, mining, construction, and retail—both nationally and internationally. A pragmatic generalist who has worked up to General Manager level, she specializes in systems, culture, and governance that actually work in the real world. Most recently, Grace held senior roles at Foodstuffs North Island (5 years) and The Warehouse Group (2 years) before transitioning to consulting. She now partners with clients across various industries to create safer workplaces, navigate their compliance obligations, and yes—have a few laughs along the way.

Aimee is a senior People and Culture practitioner with close to 20 years’ experience, from being the entire HR function for a business to HR leadership and senior organisational development roles in a mixture of business across New Zealand and the UK. That mix means she knows what it’s like to wear all the hats, and she’s just as comfortable rolling up her sleeves on the day to day as she is thinking strategically, across employment relations, resourcing and talent, leadership development, and building high-performing teams.

Her strength is getting to the heart of a problem quickly, then building practical, easy to apply solutions that suit the size of the business and the budget. For Aimee, HR is ultimately about people thriving at work, both in how they perform and how they feel, and she’s just as invested in the business succeeding as she is in getting the HR right.

Anne-Marie is an experienced People & Culture leader with a strong background in professional services and a passion for creating workplaces where people and organisations can thrive.

With a career spanning HR, recruitment and strategic people leadership, Anne-Marie brings a practical, commercially minded approach to building high-performing teams and shaping positive workplace cultures. She has held senior People & Culture roles across leading New Zealand professional services organisations, including some of the country’s largest law firms.

Anne-Marie combines strategic thinking with a people-first approach, partnering closely with leaders to navigate organisational change, develop talent, strengthen culture, design remuneration and reward frameworks, and create meaningful employee experiences. She is particularly passionate about connecting people strategy with business objectives and making HR accessible, pragmatic and impactful.

Originally qualifying as a Materials Scientist, Linda-Ann uses her natural bent for logic and reason to research, collect, order and provide analysis of HR data. She is also involved in providing back-up and support to the team on all data related matters.

Heidi has extensive experience in business, having owned and managed a family business for many years. Over the last 15 years she has focussed her career on financial management. Heidi looks after all our billing, accounts and all manner of other administration. And when she’s not doing that, Heidi enjoys family time, socialising, travel and the gym!