Chris Beard is the CEO of ISANA NZ and an Adjunct Teaching Fellow for the Victoria University of Wellington School of Education. He has many years’ experience working with international students and more recently refugee background learners. Chris led the development of ISANA NZ’s online Toolkit and eight eLearning micro modules.   

Shireen is a Certified Professional Coach, Certified Intercultural Intelligence Trainer, Enhanced Conversational Intelligence Coach, and a CQ Trainer (Advanced) with Cultural Intelligence.  She also facilitates High Performing Intercultural Teams training. After managing several multicultural teams and coaching professionals relocating to Asia and Aotearoa, Shireen set up Third Culture Solutions, which specialises in finding co-created intercultural solutions for leaders, teams and organisations.

Patrick is a Chinese migrant from Hong Kong.  He has been working in the mental health field as a Registered Psychiatric Nurse both in Hong Kong and New Zealand for over 30 years.  He has worked in various mental health settings including Child and Adolescent Mental Health, Adult Mental Health, Forensic (Youth and Adult) Mental Health and other acute and specialist mental health areas.  Patrick has been the Team Leader of the Asian Mental Health Services of a District Health Board in Auckland for over 16 years.

Colleen Ward is Professor of Cross-cultural Psychology and the Founding Director of the Centre for Applied Cross-cultural Research at Victoria University of Wellington. Her studies on crossing cultures, spanning over 30 years, are amongst the most internationally cited programmes of research on this topic. Professor Ward has also designed and delivered intercultural training to meet the needs of international students, immigrants, and expatriates.