Serving the people

Disillusionment with democracy is understandable, says a Kiwi helping the next generation of world leaders to raise their game.

- LOUISE CHUNN

Like many high-achieving New Zealand expats, Ngaire Woods is probably better known overseas than in her homeland. “When anything important comes up about world governance, she’s the one the Today programme [BBC Radio’s flagship morning news programme] wants to speak to,” says Eric Tracey, chair of the UK Friends of the University of Auckland. “She’s really impressive, and you can see that from what she is asked to do. She’s right up in the top level.”

Dean of the Blavatnik School of Government at Oxford University, Woods is surely one of New Zealand’s most decorated overseas-based academics. She was made a CBE for services to higher education and public policy in 2018 and sits on the advisory boards of the Centre for Global Development, the Hoffmann Global Institute for Business and Society, the African Leadership Institute, the School of Management and Public Policy at Beijing’s Tsinghua University, the Nelson Mandela School of Public Governance at Cape Town University and the International Business and Diplomatic Exchange. She is also a past co-chair of the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on Values, Technology and Governance.

Driving into Oxford to meet Woods on a sunny early-spring morning, you can’t help but be swept up in the extraordinary history of this place. Its medieval buildings are a byword for a first-class education and it provides most of its graduates with a golden ticket for their entire working lives. Of the past nine British prime ministers, seven went to an Oxford college.