Catherine Judd
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Catherine Judd is the former president of ACT New Zealand and managing director of Awaroa Partners [1]. She was formerly director of JM Communications.
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[edit] Early life
Catherine was raised in Christchurch and attended the University of Canterbury [2].
[edit] Career prior to presidency of ACT New Zealand
Catherine was communications and public affairs manager for the National Provident Fund through its extensive restructuring from 1988 to 1991. In the 18 month lead-up to the completion of the NPF tender process Catherine was also General Manager, Regional Operations, responsible for management of six regional offices and five branch offices.
She worked for four years as a communications consultant to the New Zealand Treasury, the GST Launch Team and various ministers of the crown.
Prior to that, Catherine worked for three years as a public relations and communications consultant for a Washington DC consultancy. She spent three years working as a current affairs journalist for Television New Zealand and four years in documentary film production with the New Zealand National Film Unit.
Catherine was a member of the Board of the Wellington Community Trust from 1999 to 2003.
She was a founding director of public company St Lukes' Group (now Westfield) from 1993 to 1996, a Trustee of the Royal New Zealand Ballet from 1990 to 1994 and served on the Board of Trustees of Wellington College from 1995 to 2001. Catherine has won numerous international communication awards, was a judge of: the ASFONZ Excellence in Annual Reporting competition in 1997 and 1998, the IABC International Gold Quill Awards, Asia Pacific Section in 1998, and the annual AXA Trustee of the Year Award in 1999 and 2000.
[edit] Presidency of ACT New Zealand, 2001-2006
Catherine was elected President of ACT New Zealand in March 2001. Her bid of the presidency was support by the founders of ACT Hon Sir Roger Douglas and Hon Derek Quigley.
[edit] The Liberal Project
A key feature of the Judd presidency was the Liberal Project project which was designed to focus the party on its classical liberal roots.
[edit] Election of a new ACT leader
It was during Catherine's time as president that on 27 April 2004 Richard Prebble announced he would retire as the leader of ACT. Catherine was one of only a handful of people Richard confided in prior to announcing his intention to the ACT Caucus [3].
Catherine oversaw the membership primary [4] the party decided to run to assist in selecting a new leader. Rodney Hide was evidently selected as the leader following the primary [5] and a caucus vote [6].
[edit] Retirement as ACT president
Catherine announced publicly in January 2006 that she would not be standing for re-election as the party president [7].
She stepped down from the Presidency at the 2006 ACT Annual Conference in March, and was replaced by Hamilton businessman Garry Mallett.
[edit] Since retiring as president of ACT
A number of New Zealand newspapers have speculated that Catherine will run for the mayoralty of Wellington in 2007.
