ABOUT JOSIE
Josie Pagani is a widely published commentator and writer who works in aid and development, governance and geopolitics.
She is the chief executive of Child Fund New Zealand and a member of the Editorial Advisory Board of NZME.
Her fortnightly column appears in New Zealand's capital morning daily, The Post, and on Stuff. She is a frequent contributor to current affairs radio, TV, podcasts and online programmes and discussions and appears most weeks with Heather du Plessis-Allan's Huddle on Newstalk ZB. Her writing has appeared in international journals including the New York Times, Reader's Digest and National Geographic.
She is a partner in a boutique management counsel and public affairs agency working on geopolitics and sustainability.
Josie is a former chair of the Board of Fair Trade Australia & New Zealand and Parents Centre and a former director of the Council for International Development. She has been a ministerial press secretary, and a manager at the OECD Development Assistance Committee in Paris and at New Zealand’s aid and development agency. She has been an advocate for prison reform, and a trustee of the Rewi Alley Foundation.
Born in New Zealand, she has lived in the US and France. She grew up in the United Kingdom and read English and Theatre at Warwick University for a Bachelor of Arts with Honours. She has a Graduate Certificate in International Law from Victoria University of Wellington. Josie has limited knowledge of German, French and te reo Maori.
She is the daughter of Emory University professor Fraser J Harbutt, and noted New Zealand writer Elspeth Sandys.
You can read a 2012 media profile of her here and listen to a Newstalk ZB interview about her work and life below.
