About Jayne Chater

“Jayne is described as someone who is curious, compassionate and challenging. She leads with empathy and genuinely cares about people.”

Curious, compassionate and challenging, I am all about creating space for people to step in to and be fully human, and creating harmony in the integration of self, mahi, and whānau.

At 26 I was offered my first leadership role, and I distinctly recall sitting at the leadership table feeling like I shouldn’t be there. If only I knew then what I know now...  Now it is my mission to support women at all stages of their careers to have belief, confidence and conviction in themselves, and to live a fulfilling life. 

I got involved with Professionelle (now called Women Who LEAD) in the early days because I was passionate about helping women. I could also quickly see the difference support like this would have made back when I was in my first leadership role. This cemented my commitment to the organisation, of which I’ve been involved for many years now.

During my first pregnancy, over 18 years ago, I became aware of the many challenges that come with exiting and re-entering the workforce after having children. As well as the birth of my first daughter, conversations with other mothers and a significant research project followed, which soon led to me specialising in coaching working mums.

My family soon grew to include three daughters, and with it came the reality of the ‘struggle of the juggle’. This strengthened my dedication to providing focused support to help ambitious mums navigate the journey of working parenthood, while helping organisations build a pipeline of empowered and smart female talent. 

During this time, my marriage dissolved and I found myself alone, with three children with varying needs, with financial demands, and with a career that I wanted and needed to grow. How I’ve done this has been deeply rewarding and, more recently, as a mother of three growing daughters I’ve thought more about the legacy that I want to leave. This has fuelled my involvement with the wonderful Sue Watson to create The Leaderful Movement.

Throughout it all, I firmly believe that wherever you are on your path, and whichever path you are on, you are not alone. I also believe that you make the right choices, at the right time, for the right reasons, based on what you have right here and right now. And it’s my pleasure to be here supporting you to do that better.