Meet the Team

Angela Atkins

Angela has worked in HR and L&D roles for 20+ years within local government, tertiary, retail and financial services in NZ and Australia. Angela co-founded Elephant and built the Management Bites programme. She is the best-selling author of Management Bites, Employment Bites, Training Bites and Safety Bites. Angela now lives in France but continues as an HR coach and global facilitator.

Nikki Peck

Nikki has over 20 years of generalist HR experience working in diverse sectors such as health, engineering, utilities, retail and not-for-profit.  Nikki has a Post Graduate Diploma in HR and works as an HR consultant for various businesses as well as running Elephant workshops. She always gets fantastic reviews as a facilitator and is passionate about providing practical and useful answers. Nikki was named one of the best HR people in NZ in 2018.

Laura Trethewey

Laura has an HR career that includes roles with Wilson Hellaby, Walter and Wild and Auckland Meat Processors. She founded People Ninja’s in 2020 to provide innovative and adaptive HR solutions to businesses. Laura has expertise in HR, Health and Safety and Learning and Development. She prides herself in being pragmatic, creative and transparent in the way she works and has a Bachelor of Business in HR and Employment Relations.

Ilze Walton

Ilze is a Senior People and Culture Consultant and has a Bachelor of Business, majoring in Human Resources Management. She has a blend of experience working within and consulting to different types of organisations and as an accredited coach and practitioner, Ilze has experience diagnosing organisational effectiveness, and implementing culture and behavioural change solutions, using different tools and techniques.

Vanessa Webb

Vanessa’s HR roles include in health, law enforcement and social services. She has also worked as a Labour Inspector with the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment, where she honed her skills in investigation work and Holidays Act compliance. Vanessa has a Post Graduate Diploma in HR with Massey University, has a Private Investigator license and enjoys helping resolve conflicts and tease out complex HR situations.

Wendy Li

Wendy is an experienced workplace practitioner with over 15 years’ experience in employment law, ER and OD.  She has held leadership roles in both private practice and public sector organisations in the area of employment and industrial relations. Wendy has practiced employment law in NZ and Australia as well as undertaking work in the United States and France. She has led bargaining teams in a large employer organisation, in negotiations with multiple unions.

Angela Evans

Angela Evans is a partner at BE Employment Law, a newly established specialist firm she co-founded. She has over 15 years as an employment lawyer providing clear, practical advice in all areas of HR.  Angela has presented at elephant conferences and workshops for several years and gets rave reviews for her presentations and advice.

Richard Westney

Richard is a senior HR Manager blogging about all things HR. His nearly 20 year HR career has seen him working for a variety of private and public sector organizations in both the UK and NZ. He is passionate about trying to put back into the profession and raise the bar in terms of his own and others skills. He is the co-founder of Summer of Biz and the Wellington HR Meetup.

Melanie Brewer

Melanie is an experienced and passionate HR Practitioner with 14+ years’ experience who has worked in the public and private sectors across the full range of HR disciplines ranging from ER to HR Strategy. She started her career in law, which included 4 years as an employment lawyer, before she made the leap into HR, and she’s hasn’t looked back! She’s particularly enthusiastic about building peoples’ capability in workshops in practical and engaging ways.