Biography

Richard Te Hurinui Jones – Ngati Maniapoto, Rangitāne o Tāmaki-nui-a-Rua, Te Arawa

Richard is the outgoing Chief Executive of Poutama.

He has spent the past 30 years following his passion of working in the area of Māori economic self-determination.

A strong advocate of international business, Richard has been involved in facilitating trade between Māori business with Asia, China, Europe and the United States.

As a passionate believer and advocate of ‘together we can achieve more’, Richard has driven a number of collaborative initiatives in sectors such as tourism, food and beverage. and investment. For the past few years, he took the journey of a ‘thousand cups of tea’ to pull together a collaboration between Māori and Japanese business interests to establish a geothermal powered dairy processing plant.

More recently, Richard has been working on the formation of a renewable energy business and a vertically integrated Māori hemp collective.