Transition planning: from the boardroom to the billboards 

Webinar series overview

In today’s rapidly evolving landscape, directors face mounting pressure to lead their organisations through complex transitions driven by climate change, regulatory shifts, and stakeholder expectations. Transition planning is not about another standalone strategy or plan, but a strategic shift to support your business’s to gain access to capital, ensure business efficiency, comply with market and regulatory requirements, and support a transition to net zero.  

This webinar series is designed to equip board members with the insights, strategies, and tools necessary to navigate this critical area of transformation. Each session will explore key aspects of transition planning, including governance frameworks, climate-related risk and opportunity management, sustainable finance, and stakeholder engagement. Industry experts and experienced directors will share practical approaches for balancing long-term sustainability goals with short-term performance imperatives and the value of moving beyond a compliance-first mindset. 
 
Directors will gain actionable knowledge to future-proof their organisations and build long-term value and resilience. Join us to lead with confidence as we transition toward a low-carbon, sustainable future. 
 
Episode 3 
 
Disclosing your transition planning is an opportunity for a business to own its own narrative. Transition planning is an opportunity to articulate the connection between climate-related risks and opportunities to strategic priorities, capital allocation, metrics and targets. Regularly engaging with shareholders, employees, customers and supply chain builds trust and confidence, mitigates resistance to change, enhances investor confidence, positions the business for long-term success, and safeguards the future of the business. 

Speakers

Alec Tang MInstD 

As a Chartered Environmentalist and Fellow of the Institute of Environmental Management and Assessment, Alec has focused his career on addressing the breadth of sustainability challenges and opportunities that are increasingly shaping our communities, society and economy. This has included a range of leadership positions in academia, business and the public sector, alongside an active involvement in professional institutions, industry associations and networking groups. 
 
Through these roles, Alec has become well-practised in the identification of strategic and operational sustainability risks as well as the development and delivery of solutions to meet these challenges. Alec has successfully built and led numerous diverse, multi-disciplinary teams through a focus on common values, aligned purpose and trust. His work has ranged from the development of high-level regional strategies on climate change, liveability and wellbeing, incorporating broad stakeholder and community engagement, through to the design and delivery of specific interventions and the creation of impact measures to gauge their success.  
 
Alec’s diverse background means that he can couple an in-depth knowledge of organisational sustainability risks with an understanding of the operational contexts and behaviours that are present within complex organisations. In addition to these broad strategic and technical insights, his strengths include the core communication and interpersonal skills required to effectively engage and collaborate with the internal and external stakeholders that are critical to delivering long term transformation sustainability change. 

Anne Urlwin CFInstD 

Anne Urlwin is a Chartered Fellow of the Institute of Directors, Standards Committee chair, Wellington Branch Committee member, and a representative on the National Council. A professional director, Anne divides her time between Wanaka and Wellington. Her governance experience is in a diverse range of sectors including energy, construction, health, telecommunications, infrastructure, regulation and financial services, and in different organisations including private, publicly listed, Crown and local authority companies and statutory entities.

Anne is chair of Precinct Properties New Zealand Ltd, a director of City Rail Link Ltd, Infratil Ltd, Vector Ltd and Ventia Services Group Ltd.  Anne is an establishment member of the NZX Corporate Governance Institute. She is a former director of Summerset Group Holdings Ltd, Queenstown Airport Corporation Ltd, Tilt Renewables Ltd, Chorus Ltd, and Steel & Tube Holdings Ltd, and a former chair of national commercial construction group Naylor Love Enterprises Ltd and of the New Zealand Blood Service.

Campbell Featherstone

Campbell is a Partner and leading commercial, technology and privacy lawyer at Dentons. He advises clients on issues relating to technology (including AI), privacy and data protection, and consumer and marketing law compliance. He regularly advises clients on large-scale procurement projects, including on the simplification of their procurement processes, and the standardisation of their contractual documentation. In doing so, he is often asked to consider approaches to modern-day slavery risks in supply chains, living wage rates, climate change and other reporting obligations, privacy and consumer law compliance, and other ethical considerations. 

Having worked in the United Kingdom, the Middle East and New Zealand, Campbell has experience with multi-jurisdictional issues. He has been involved in global product launches and has coordinated advice from lawyers from across the globe, in order to deliver to the end client a consistent and accurate brief of legal issues affecting each market. This also enables him to bring a global view to the legal issues affecting New Zealand organisations, allowing him to provide clients with insight about regulatory trends in other jurisdictions that are likely to affect them.

Facilitator