School Board
Grant Trethewey ’76 – Chairman
Grant is an Old Boy, who attended the School from 1976 to 1980. He joined the Board in 2022 as the Old Boys’ Association representative and was named as Chairman in June 2024.
Grant was President of the Association during the School’s 150th year in 2019, and was involved in the fundraising for the Te Ara Capital Project, and has also been a member of the Headmasters Council.
Grant and his wife Ginny have owned and operated Early Learning Centres in West Auckland for the last 15 years. Prior to his involvement in the Early Childhood sector, he worked as a town planner and solicitor
Grant’s son Hamish ’15 finished his tenure at the School in 2019.
Mark Malpass
Mark was appointed to the Board in 2016 and is Deputy Chair, while also being Chair of the Succession and Remuneration Committee, and member of the Finance, Development and Property Committees.
Mark is CEO at Steel and Tube Holdings Ltd. He has significant executive and governance experience in NZ and overseas. He worked with ExxonMobil Corporation for over 19 years, previously Managing Director of Mobil Oil NZ, and was Chief Executive of Fletcher Building’s largest division, Infrastructure Products.
Mark has three sons who are current students or recent leavers of Auckland Grammar School: Max ’14, Oscar ’16 and Felix ’19.
Frances Hay-Mackenzie
Frances has taught Latin and Classics at Grammar since 2004 and is Head of Classics. Frances was Teacher in Charge of Latin and Classics at Epsom Girls’ Grammar School, until she took a break from teaching to train as a lawyer.
Frances subsequently practiced Litigation and Employment Law for 15 years at Minter Ellison Rudd Watts. However, her love of both the classroom and the ancient world, together with an opportunity to teach at Auckland Grammar School brought her back to teaching.
Professor Simon Holdaway
Simon is Professor of Archaeology at the University of Auckland, and is Associate Deputy Vice Chancellor – Research. He was educated at the University of Otago before taking up a Fulbright Travel Scholarship to study at the University of Pennsylvania.
He first lectured in archaeology at La Trobe University, Melbourne, before returning to take up a lecturing position at the University of Auckland in 1999. He has research interests that cover the archaeology of Australia, Egypt, and Aotearoa.
Simon is the University of Auckland representative on the Board.
Jodie King
Jodie joined the Board at the beginning of 2022, and is a member of the Succession and Remuneration, Disciplinary and Enrolment, Development and Education Committees, as well as chairing the Digital Technologies Committee.
Jodie has a management consulting background at KPMG in London and Europe. She was Chief People Officer at Air NZ from 2016-2020, and is currently Chief People Officer at One.NZ, where her remit includes Corporate Affairs, Human Resources, Property, and Health and Safety.
Jodie is proud of her whakapapa to Ngai Tahu, is a Trustee of the Te RouRou (One.NZ) Foundation, is a member of Global Women and a member of the Auckland University Business School Advisory Council.
Jodie has three children, daughter Francesca, and sons Louis and Freddie, who are in Form 5 and 7 respectively at the School.
Kerin Russell-Smith
Joining the Board in 2019, Kerin serves as a director on boards within the Russell Group of Companies. She has 30 years domestic and international experience in Finance, Construction and Property.
In her role she works across Strategy, Finance, Compliance, Human Resources and Property and Investment.
Kerin is a chartered accountant, a trustee of the Keystone Trust, a founding member of Family Business NZ, a member of NZIOB, Global Women, and the Property Council’s People Awards Panel.
Kerin has three children, a daughter and two sons who are Old Boys (George ’17 and William ’18), and her brother Brett is an Old Boy from the class of 1980.
Nelson Wang ’90
Nelson is an Old Boy, who attended the School from 1990 to 1993. He is the CEO of Zino Ventures, an investment fund focuses on combining capital along with specific Asian market expertise to help NZ technology companies expand and scale into Asia.
He was awarded Fellowship FCA from Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand in 2022, and has over 20 years’ experience in helping multinational businesses from Asia successfully establishing their operations in New Zealand.
Nelson has two children (Matthew and Hayley), with Matthew finishing his tenure in 2025.
Daniel Wong
Daniel was elected to the Board in 2022 and sits on the Discipline and Enrolment Committee as well as Finance, Property and Tibbs House.
Daniel has significant governance experience in the not-for-profit sector, including being a former board member of Kohia Terrace School and the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra. Daniel has been a trustee of the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra Foundation since 2016.
Daniel is a co-founder of, and practising lawyer at, Flacks & Wong, a corporate law firm and winner of ‘Boutique Law Firm of the Year’ at the New Zealand Law Awards 2019.
Daniel has two children, Alexandra and Henry, who will finish his tenure at Grammar in 2026.
Will Carnachan ’92
Will joined the Board in January 2024, as the Old Boys’ Association representative. Will is an Old Boy, who attended the School from 1992 to 1996 and was a Prefect in his final year.
Will is a co-founder and Director of Aotea Asset Management, a corporate credit fund manager. Prior to this, Will was Head of Corporate Finance at BNZ and was a corporate law solicitor early in his career.
Will is from a fourth generation Grammar family, and has three children, including two boys, aged 11 and 8, who will soon be carrying on the family tradition.
David Watt ’90
David was appointed to the Board in 2023 and is a member of the Finance, Property and Tibbs House Committees. Dave is an Old Boy, who attended the School from 1990 to 1994.
David is a Partner at Pencarrow Private Equity, New Zealand’s longest established private equity firm and is a director of a number of Pencarrow’s portfolio companies. Previously, Dave was a Managing Director in the Investment Banking team at Jarden, one of New Zealand’s leading investment and advisory groups and has over 20 years of experience in the finance industry.
Dave has two sons and a daughter. His two sons, Max and Hugh, are currently in Forms 5 and 3 respectively.
Tim O’Connor
Tim became the 11th Headmaster of Auckland Grammar School in 2012.
Educated at Palmerston North Boys’ High School, Tim obtained a Diploma of Teaching at Palmerston North Teachers’ College and graduated from Massey University with a Bachelor of Education.
Tim was previously Rector of Palmerston North Boys’ High School for 10 years, starting his tenure in 2002.
He was awarded a Woolf Fisher Fellowship in 2007 and in the same year was made a Sir Peter Blake Trust Emerging Leader. Further details are available here.
Tim’s eldest son Finn ’11 was a Senior Prefect in 2015 and was Captain of the 1st XI Hockey team, while his youngest son Jack ’17 finished in 2021.
The administrative functions of the Board are professionally carried out by Dauniika Puklowski.
All Board members bring a wide range of skills and disciplines that gives assurance to the Grammar community that the governance of the School is in very capable hands. But above and beyond this, each of them has a huge passion for Grammar and a desire to ensure that we achieve and maintain our vision of pre-eminence in boys’ secondary education.
The School is privileged and honoured to have a group of such talented and committed people making such a huge contribution to our School.