When you see a well-known logo, you see a much bigger and more profound story. Achieving recognition makes powerful brands — brand-led companies significantly outperform their competition.More competition exists in our markets than ever, and a compelling and believable brand and impactful visual communications put a business, product, service, or individual on a faster track to success. Investing in your brand is one of the top decisions you can make.Moxie is a creative agency that has specialised in brand and visual identity development for over two decades. Whether starting from Ground Zero, looking to amp up an existing brand, or stuck in a bit of a brand logjam, my role is to lead our creative projects and bring fresh thinking to help people build value in their brands and achieve their goals and vision. Moxie is a member Transparency International and a Sustainable Business Network foundation member.

I’m an essayist at heart. I love entertaining people through my eclectic observations, which I explore in my blog Never Succumb to Beige — francesmanwaring.com — and an about-to-be-published (2 April 24) book of the same name.I have so many ideas and observations rattling around in my head it’s almost a compulsion to write them down. I’m not in it to smack readers in the face with inconvenient truths. It’s more about offering a perspective. A challenge to look at some things differently by commenting on stuff that interests, challenges or makes me smile. I generally see the funny side of the equation—I can’t resist a good pun or an opportunity for self-parody. Humour is a great way to approach challenging concepts and diffuse them or stimulate action, and I love the nuance that is possible within our rich and versatile language.Writing has been a love since I won a short story competition in primary school. Since then, I've written magazine articles, a column on business networking, Sects & the City for In-Business Wellington, a novelette about the final days of Anne Boleyn (an honours degree in Medieval History explains this interest), and an exhibition and a short book Food Futures: The Face of Tomorrow. A few years ago, she ghost-wrote an autobiography for a top sales professional.At the end of 2023, I launched a book drawn from my professional practice, Brands with Moxie: Eight Steps to a Winning Brand, which is available on Amazon in Kindle and Paperback formats.

Shrew is a company which I set up in 2001 with my sister Roz to publish Shrew Magazine and various shrewish digital offerings over the years since then. We are now an 'Indie Publisher' with a growing number of titles in our portfolio.

Formed in 1947, Orpheus Choir Wellington has long been New Zealand’s premier symphonic choir. We bring the big choir experience — dramatic, spectacular, and emotionally charged performances of stunning choral music — to a wide variety of events.I love being part of this great choir, and it's a privilege to have been its Chair since 2019. During that time, I led a re-brand for the choir, which has increased our profile and reach and better positioned us at the centre of the performing arts in Wellington. I have also led the development of a new financial strategy and management structure to ensure Orpheus remains sustainable in the long term. We want future generations to get the same joy we do from experiencing some of the greatest musical works ever written.

Coralus is a global community of radically generous women transforming the way we fund, support and celebrate women-led Ventures working on the World’s To Do List. Since launching in 2015, 5,000 women Activators in five countries have collectively loaned out $5M to support 68 women-led ventures. Our goal is to reach 1M women Activators and a $1B perpetual fund which will support 10,000 women-led Ventures each year for generations to come. Are you IN? https://sheeo.world/

The National Council of Women was founded by Kate Sheppard in 1896 following the successful campaign that gained the right for New Zealand women to vote in 1893.It was great to have been co-opted onto the Board during the 125th Anniversary of this milestone to help finish the job Kate started! Unfortunately, business commitments made it impossible to continue as a Board Member beyond my cooped term of eight months. One of my main achievements during my tenure was to co-develop our NCWNZ’s 2018 Campaign — 1000 Strong to Right the Wrong.

I was a co-founder of this high-tech start-up. ShowGizmo is a smartphone app for events. We were pioneers in this new technology, and our app went on to become, for many years, the #1 event app in Australia, which powered events worldwide. In 2018, a third party took up an in-perpetuity licence for ShowGizmo which continues to be a great companion for eventgoers.

Our founder group saw an opportunity to use virtual technology to minimise the 'tyrany of distance' many NZ companies face by bringing the world to us. We partnered with a US entrepreneur and founder of Expos2, one of the leading virtual events platforms, staging New Zealand's first international virtual events.

Over the years I've held senior positions in consulting, regional economic development, retail, venture capital and international media in New Zealand and the UK, and governance roles in NZ, UK, Spain and France.