22 July 2021

About this Event

The importance of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) as a market is growing. It is now New Zealand’s fourth largest trading partner. The SEA CAPE ‘Let’s Talk ASEAN: Digital & Creative Industries’ is the perfect introductory seminar/session for Kiwi entrepreneurs, founders and business managers involved in the digital and creative industries and anyone wanting to explore the diverse cultures, economies, and ways of doing business in Southeast Asia.

Professor Siah Hwee Ang is the Director of New Zealand’s Southeast Asia Centre of Asia-Pacific Excellence. He is also Professor of International Business and Strategy and the inaugural Chair in Business in Asia at Victoria University of Wellington. In these roles, Siah works closely with various stakeholders and companies on their strategies in Asia and Asia’s engagement in New Zealand.

Beyond publishing in international top journals and an expert in strategy, competition and international business, Siah is Senior Editor of Strategy, Institutions and Research Design of the Journal of World Business, a leading international business journal, and sits on various editorial boards of international top tier journals over the years. In New Zealand, Siah sits on the national assessment panels for New Zealand Prime Minister’s Scholarships for Asia, Prime Minister’s Business Scholarships, and Marsden Fund.

Before joining Victoria University of Wellington, Siah was Professor in Strategy and Associate Dean Postgraduate and International (Asia) at the University of Auckland Business School, a research fellow at Cass Business School, City University in London and the National University of Singapore, where he completed his PhD in Management. Siah is Visiting Professor to a few Asian universities. He writes frequently in the media.

Ziena Jalil – Independent Director | Strategic Consultant | Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Advocate

Ziena is a keynote speaker, facilitator and commentator on a range of topics including Asia business, diversity and inclusion, nation branding, leadership and politics. She consults on strategy and stakeholder engagement, and is a board member of Manukau Institute of Technology, Unitec, DNA Design, and the Cancer Society Auckland Northland.

A New Zealand Women of Influence awards finalist (Board & Management, and Global categories), Ziena was also recognised by Campaign Asia Pacific as part of its 2020 Women to Watch, a group of 40 outstanding women in the Asia-Pacific. She has received several international awards for her work promoting New Zealand trade and education in Asia, while in the roles of Regional Director (South & South East Asia) for Education New Zealand, New Zealand Trade Commissioner to Singapore, and Head of North Asia Marketing and Communications for New Zealand Trade and Enterprise.

Ziena has helped some of New Zealand’s largest businesses build their reputation and revenue, advised Ministers, and worked at the grassroots supporting the growth of Māori and Pacific young people in professional careers. She continues to mentor and coach several young leaders.

Kristy Grant – Founder and Director of Miramar Creative (NZ Creative Ltd) and Chief Operating Officer of Lane Street Studios

Kristy has a background in international marketing and telling the New Zealand creative story overseas. Kristy’s organisations were established to promote and support the future sustainability of the New Zealand creative sector through the development of infrastructure in the form of physical production spaces as well as education to industry engagement programmes.

In 2017 Miramar Creative worked in partnership with Victoria University of Wellington to open the Miramar Creative Centre, a state-of-the-art production facility where students can study in the heart of the screen sector in Miramar.

To support this production facility in Miramar, there was also a requirement to have an exhibition hub in Wellington city. So, in 2018 Kristy and Jamie (Co-Founder of Miramar Creative and Weta Workshop) established Courtenay Creative, a space in the centre of our creative tech precinct established to exhibit, test, create and collaborate on content creation. Like Miramar, the Courtenay Creative space is focused on supporting a wide range of creative arts and culture including Design, Film and TV, Games, Augmented, Virtual and Mixed Reality, Music, Performing Arts, Photography and other Digital Visual Arts. We were very excited to host the Duke and Duchess of Sussex (Harry and Meghan) at Courtenay Creative in October 2018 where we took them on a journey of New Zealand creativity, showcasing artists working with students on everything from paint on canvas, to costumes and prosthetics, sculpture, music, film, virtual reality and the latest Weta Gameshop and Magic Leap collaboration in mixed reality.

As part of Kristy’s role as CEO of Lane Street Studios, she works alongside her senior leadership team who are collectively responsible for the overall design and delivery of a range screen production facilities, development of the business that operates the studios, with an additional focus on industry training and education to support the wider national screen sector. Kristy and the team are working with production companies both in NZ and Internationally that will come and reside at Lane Street throughout their production programme. Each production will provide 500 jobs on site, an additional 250 to supporting screen businesses and contribute approx. $650M to our economy per year.