The Community & Enterprise Leadership Foundation (CELF) has appointed a new executive director.

Tania Witheford will take up the position from July 9, 2018.

Tania has spent the past four years as Cambridge Chamber of Commerce’s chief executive officer. During her time there, the membership base has grown, and she further developed a strong family of sponsors and partners.

Throughout her career Tania has shown that she is a strong advocate for the business community.

“Tania is very familiar with building business vitality and supporting community through her previous experience, and we are very excited to have someone of Tania’s capability and standing in the community joining CELF,” acting chair and CELF Trustee Raewyn Jones said.

“Four years ago, founding Trustees Bernie Crosby and David Irving working with John Cook and Prof. Peter Sun set out a vison of building a stronger region through collaborative leadership,” Raewyn said.

“We now have more than 80 graduates, who are connected leaders working for greater business and community benefit in the Waikato. Tania’s key focus will be to continue to deliver on that vision and to grow our organisation for greater impact.”

CELF, which launched in 2014, is a charitable organisation working to build future leaders from all walks of life who can re-imagine a stronger Waikato from a social, environmental, cultural and economic perspective.

Through leadership development programmes, CELF brings together businesses and community not-for-profit organisations to grow their leadership capability together, benefitting the entire Waikato region.

CELF formed a strategic partnership with the University of Waikato to provide them with leading edge research to enhance their programmes.

Each year CELF welcomes a new cohort of 20 participants into a nine-month programme. The model is structured so that there are 10 business participants and 10 community organisations, which allows an opportunity to bring both groups together to engage, learn from one another and grow alongside each other. More programmes are to be developed in the coming year.

“I’m really looking forward to leading an organisation which is designed to enhance leadership within our region,” Tania said.

“It is an opportunity for me to further contribute to strengthening businesses and the community.”

For more information about CELF see www.celf.org.nz.

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