Anna Nielson Email & Phone Number

I have always loved food, wine and tourism and I have an equal passion for helping the people who lovingly prepare, manufacture, grow or showcase products and services from these sectors. Having the ability to see a gap in the market has been a constant theme throughout my career, to think strategically and successfully connect businesses with equally enthusiastic customers during changing economic or regulatory environments is my thing.I joined Destination Wairarapa one month prior to the arrival of COVID -19. During those unprecedented years, the Wairarapa was one of the top performing regions for tourism related spend achieving year on year growth - despite the impacts of the global pandemic.In 2015 I joined Toast Martinborough and was immediately faced with the daunting task of helping New Zealand’s premier wine, food and music festival navigate its way through the introduction of the Sale and Supply of Liquor Act, then Health and Safety, and finally also Food Safety. These big regulatory changes threatened to derail an event much loved for over 25 years. I am very proud that when I left this role, I had managed to successfully transition the event to the new way of operating while continuing to turn on a damn fine day that keeps people returning year after year.I am no stranger to reinvention, as a co-founder and previous co-director of Wellington on a Plate the now annual month long, city-wide event credited with lifting the Wellington restaurant industry out of the winter doldrums during the GFC, I have seen how a good idea can quickly turn fortunes - even at what appeared to be the worst of times.Prior to that I was part of the team that wooed the famous Le Cordon Bleu French cooking school to Wellington, firmly placing New Zealand on the map as a country serious about its food.My husband Scott and I, and our two children live in the beautiful village of Greytown in the Wairarapa, where I continue to satisfy my passion for wine, food and tourism.

Listed skills include Strategy Execution, Business Strategy, Strategy, Stakeholder Management, and 15 others.

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  Victoria University Of Wellington

  Japanese Studies, Marketing & Management