Rose Hiha-Agnew is the Tumu Whakarae (CEO) of Community Governance Aotearoa, where she leads national work to strengthen not-for-profit governance across Aotearoa New Zealand — supporting a sector of 115,000 non-governmental organisations, including 28,000 registered charities. She drives the organisation's strategy and innovation through education, policy influence, and practical resource design.
Rose is delivering a keynote AI is here. But who's governing it? on the New Zealand leg of BoardPro's Governing with Impact in the New AI World roadshow.
An experienced governance advisor and trainer, Rose brings grounded expertise in co-design, governance development, and indigenous leadership. She has contributed to international governance forums and is active in trans-Tasman networks advancing community leadership. But she came to the field almost by accident — after a career in local and central government, where, like many people, she found her day job rarely afforded the time or capacity for the external community governance work she wanted to take on.
Rose can trace more than 15 years in governance to a single meeting she walked into knowing almost nothing.
“I attended my first AGM for a national not-for-profit. I didn't know anything about the organisation, and it turned out to be quite political and quite contentious.”
That fascination quickly turned into a vocation.
“I came into a chair role very early and really loved it. I found a real passion for it — and that I was pretty good at it. I had a sense of what to ask and what to think.”
The path wasn't frictionless, and Rose is candid that the obstacle is one the whole sector knows well: the people who govern community organisations are usually doing it on top of everything else. Often, paid roles seldom make room for board service, even though it's one of the best ways to support community.
Ask Rose about the state of the community sector, and she reflects on how it’s structured.
"Government funding is set up as a siloed sector — sports, arts, environment, culture — but the community sector itself is one big whole. And that's how I talk about the community and voluntary sector: 115,000 not-for-profits, including Iwi Māori entities, charities, and incorporated societies. The entire community sector is right at the coalface of community connection."
That scale sits on fragile foundations, and the last few years have tested them hard.
“The biggest challenge has been the reduction in funding. It's challenged communities significantly. We've had many charities and organisations close, and having to make those hard calls.”
Much of Rose's work has been helping organisations through those moments, supporting them through issues such as how to reduce costs, or how to wind up well when there's no other option. What the sector is really asking for, she says, isn't endless support but enough certainty to plan.
“The most common thing people ask for is multi-year funding — from government and from philanthropy. It's not that we expect to be funded forever; it's that longevity is what lets us sustain our staff.”
For all the pressure, Rose is clear about what keeps people in community governance, and it isn't just duty.
“What governance roles give you in the community sector is a sense of community. You can be connecting locally, in a small voluntary organisation, and that can reach right out, even globally. I love that governance gives you a long career, especially as you get older, because your experience is so highly valued.”
It is also, in her account, a genuinely different craft from its corporate cousin, and, if anything, a harder one, because the relationships, the passion, and the goodwill that bring people to the table also make the dynamics more complex. She's alert to the risk of importing a purely corporate-governance mindset into community organisations, where the delivery and the focus are simply not the same.
Rose's keynote takes the question the whole series is built around and turns it on its head. AI, she argues, is already inside our organisations, helping draft reports, shape decisions, and even influence funding — but it never arrives on its own. It's built on our data. That's where board oversight has to begin.
Her case is that a board can't responsibly govern AI until it understands the data underneath it: who the data is about, who controls it, and what's at stake if it's mishandled. Framed that way, AI risk stops being a technology problem and becomes something boards already know how to reason about — power, consent, accountability, and trust.
“The Roadshow gives a great opportunity to share what's happening globally around how different frameworks are being created around governing data and technology. I'm looking forward to sharing some different thinking about how we can position ourselves to protect data and govern technology.”
It's a reframing, grounded in Rose's own background. Her work in co-design and indigenous leadership starts from the idea that data is about people and communities long before it's an asset, a lens that matters all the more for organisations holding sensitive information on behalf of those they serve. BoardPro's research across 485 boards in New Zealand, Australia, and beyond found most are already using AI weekly, while only a small fraction have agreed on a position on how to govern it — precisely the gap Rose's keynote sets out to close.
What Rose brings to the roadshow is a reminder of what all this governance is for. In her world, the sector isn't an abstraction — it's 115,000 organisations at the coalface of community connection, and the governance that holds them together is what lets them keep showing up. Done well, that governance is real-world impact in its most literal form: services delivered, staff sustained, communities held.
She puts the point more simply than any framework could.
"In a world of technology and social media, actually connecting and giving back — it's a real sense of purpose, and that's why it's highly valued."
Attendees will leave the keynote with the practical questions they need to protect their people, their communities, and their reputations in an AI-enabled world.
Rose Hiha-Agnew delivers the keynote AI is here. But who's governing it? on the New Zealand leg of BoardPro's roadshow — a practical day for directors on governing well in a fast-moving AI world.
The Roadshow runs across four Australian and three New Zealand cities over October and November. Save with early-bird tickets when you register before 30 September.
Choose your city and register here