Our 2022 Distinguished Alumni Award winners are shining examples of the aspiration, effort, determination and resilience required to ascend a Taumata or summit.

You are invited to join a livestream of the event to celebrate their successes and contributions.

We'll send you a link to the livestream nearer to the date of the event.

Our 2022 Distinguished Alumni

Fepulea’i Margie Apa is Chief Executive of Health New Zealand, the government’s new centralised national health organisation, and previously served as CEO of Counties Manukau District Health Board. She has more than two decades of health-sector leadership experience and is the first Samoan to lead a district health board in New Zealand. She also carries the honorific title Fepulea’i from her family village of Sale’aula, Savai'i, in Samoa.

Ngarimu Blair is an influential Māori leader who has spent more than two decades working to advance iwi issues in Auckland. He is Deputy Chair of the Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei Trust and has played a significant role in the success of Whai Rawa, the trust’s commercial arm. He has spearheaded a number of art and urban design projects highlighting Māori history in Tāmaki Makaurau and has also been heavily involved with hapū housing projects in the city.

Dr Maureen Lander is a weaver, academic and multimedia installation artist who has exhibited her work internationally and throughout New Zealand for more than 30 years. She is a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for her services to Māori art and in 2021 she won the Walters Prize, Aotearoa New Zealand's largest contemporary art prize, along with Mata Aho Collective for their large collaborative art installation Atapō.

Nigel Latta is a clinical psychologist, author and television host. He specialises in forensic psychology and family therapy and has written several books focused on helping parents raise children and teenagers. Nigel has worked with various public and private organisations throughout his career as a clinical psychologist, and in 2009 was appointed as an independent panellist on the review of the anti?smacking law. In 2012 he was made an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to psychology.

Dr Sudhvir Singh is a physician and public health leader focusing on addressing climate change and health inequalities. Through his work he strives to create conditions that give all people the opportunity to lead healthy lives on a stable planet. He has worked as a special advisor to Helen Clark in her role as Co-Chair of the Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response and is currently Technical Officer, Healthier Populations, at the World Health Organization

Taumata is from the University of Auckland's Māori name, Waipapa Taumata Rau, gifted by Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei, and meaning ‘place of many peaks’.

Whāia te iti Kahurangi, ki te tuohu koe, me he Taumata teitei.

Seek the treasure which you value dearly. If you should bow your head, let it be to a lofty mountain.