Our People
Penny Nelson – Executive Director
Penny was appointed Executive Director of the SBC in June 2012.
Penny’s prior experience includes sustainability work of many kinds with private and public sector organisations.
Penny’s most recent work has been with the Ministry of Social Development focusing on reducing long terms welfare dependency and the social sector response to the Canterbury earthquake.
Prior position include leading the Ministry for the Environment’s sustainability reporting programme and working in support of early adopter sustainable businesses. She was involved in establishing the Govt3 programme.
Central to Penny’s work has been the development of partnerships including agreements with businesses, research organisations and local authorities.
As science leader at Landcare Research, Penny developed a CRI-business partnership on life cycle management. As policy manager at DairyNZ, she developed partnerships with regional government, dairy companies and farmer groups working on effluent management and water quality.
An Otago and Lincoln graduate, Ms Nelson has a Masterate in Science (Honours) in Resource Management.
Jacinta Syme – Manager, Sustainable Business Council
Jacinta’s work with the Sustainable Business Council centres on communications, events, and member relations. She presently oversees the Sustainable Business Council’s ‘Future Leaders Programme’.
Before joining the Sustainable Business Council, Jacinta established and managed the BusinessNZ major companies group ‘Sustainable Business Forum’ (2008-2011). Formerly Jacinta headed up product marketing for iconic Kiwi nursery brand ‘phil&teds’, where she was responsible for product marketing design and deployment internationally and in five languages. Earlier roles include District Manager for New Zealand’s National Census, Strategic Events Advisor to the International Society for Digital Earth, and programmes planning and strategy for the Rockrose Institute, a non-profit for non-violent conflict resolution, San Francisco.
Jacinta is a certified Global Reporting Initiative Practitioner, New Zealand Leadership Institute graduate (Future Leaders Programme), and is fluent in Japanese.
Jacinta is passionate about family, authentic relationships, and good food.
