DAVID GALBRAITH

Board Chairperson and founder of the Pathway 1 Foundation

Recently retired, David has been a New Zealand Registered clinical psychologist for more than 20 years, specialising in performance psychology in the sporting and business arenas. David specialises in supporting individuals, teams and communities to establish robust and productive cultures based on personal and collective excellence.

David began specialising in sport and business in 2006 and has continued to grow his practice in this area. He worked full time with elite athletes and teams from various sports such as the Chiefs Super Rugby Team, All Blacks Rugby 7s team, the NZ Women’s Sevens team, the NZ BMX team, NZ Women’s Football team and NZ Golf. He worked with the Magic netball team during 2012 and 2013. He is also working with a number individual elite Olympic athletes.

David’s practice revolves around three core principals; Live from Courage, Moments of Perfection or MOPs, Self Acceptance. These are central to the book ‘UNLEASHING GREATNESS‘.

WAYNE SMITH

I am a Putaruru boy and have most of my family on farms down there. I went to Putaruru High School and completed an Honours degree in Social Sciences at Waikato Uni. I still traveled home to play rugby in Putaruru as it’s where I connected best with people and had the greatest personal meaning. I was really lucky to have strong support as a young rugby player which allowed me to dream. I never imagined I would become an All Black, but I had been encouraged to follow my bliss and this allowed me to think bigger than a skinny little Putaruru kid was supposed to! Clearly my passions are my family and Rugby. The two things have always been entwined. The strong connections with my family and community have always given me the resilience and inspiration to play and coach. My rural background, playing multiple sports as a youngster, filling in for adult teams and having to be self reliant shaped my coaching belief that people will rise to a challenge if it’s their challenge – they won’t necessarily rise to others’ challenges.

This part of supporting youth who are willing to rise to their own challenges, who want to give back to community and help others really excites me Trish and my twin boys (Nick and Josh) lived with me in Italy for a few years in the 80’s and 90’s. These were formative years for the boys and, whilst the history of the place fascinated and inspired them, we all really came to treasure what we had in NZ. Less people, less pollution, less corruption and a purer, more accessible wild environment. Combining both these areas (youth and environment) is unique and the reason I’m so keen to support Pathway 1.

LAURA LANGMAN

Laura was born and breed in the Waikato and raised on their family diary farm in the small rural settlement of Te Pahu. I have a huge passion for sport with netball having had most of my attention since the age of 16. 100 plus netball games for New Zealand and the Trans Tasman ANZ netball league, two Commonwealth Games gold\’s and too many tear jerking silver medals to Australia to count, my philosophy in life remains to LIVE my impossible dream. I am all about making myself nervous to remind myself that I am living and to have the courage to continually test what am I made of. Success to me is inspiring young athletes to have an impossible dream and to travel the road no one wants to take to get there. Whilst at netball I have obtained a Bachelor of Business Analysis majoring in Accounting, Graduate Diploma in Accounting and am currently working toward becoming a Chartered Accountant. Snow boarding and Pilates is my down time go to. Thus when time permits I undertake Pilates instructor courses with the goal of becoming a registered Pilates trainer in the near future. Home for me is with my activities mad husband Adrian Pooley, having cups of tea my grandparents and getting stuck in on the farm with my family.

CRYSTAL KAUA

Crystal is a highly respected young Business woman and mentor in the Waikato. She is passionate about people realising their deep potential. She has an incredible track record in supporting youth excel in life through sport. She brings far more than a deep understanding about youth and elite sport however. She has a wealth of knowledge and experience in business, and especially marketing and evolving strategic community an business relationships. Crystal has completed a Bachelor of Sport and Leisure Studies with Economics (University of Waikato), the Governance Development Programme (Institute of Directors) and the Excelerator Future Leaders Programme (Auckland University). She is the managing director of the Athletes House Gym in Hamilton.

DEAN EGGERS

During my career I have held several concurrent leadership and founding roles with the key theme being performance and people, building successful tools and delivering solid business results.

Working and engaging with people to achieve the best possible result is what I excel at, along with having some fun in achieving it.

My first role was a boyhood dream which came true when I became an auctioneer for Turners & Growers. By age 30 I was a finalist in the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award for my role in several companies, including the start-up of The Car Dealer Magazine. 15 years on I have mentored, inspired and coached a number of staff, clients and professional athletes to enjoy great success.

During the past 28 years I’ve taken on Managing Directorships, General Manager and Group Operational roles, leading teams of up to 500+ FTE’s and delivering turnaround results, client retention and business performance.

With people, performance and results being key drivers for me, a notable achievement in my career was when I founded U Management, a management company looking after some of New Zealand’s most promising golfers who were turning professional. With an interest and passion for the game I set out to understand what the key attributes were that underpinned the success of the world’s best players. These same drivers I adapt and apply to lift performance, develop commercial capability and grow talent.

Extending out from the drivers for high potential and high-performance sports I identified the opportunity to translate these KPA’s into commercial outcomes and developed a framework for business improvement – The Flexability Model ™. I use Flexability as the foundation to build a culture of accountability and success. Applying this model for the past 15 years has translated into increased profitability and team engagement across a range of organisations where success has been about knowing and doing the doing.