June 2023 Women's Networking Dinner

Our guest speaker is Kate Coughlan, editor of NZ Life & Leisure magazine.

Director of Lifestyle Magazine Group

Kate decided to be a war correspondent when she was eight years old and listening to the BBC World Service on her parents’ transistor radio. She became entranced by “Tom Greene in Beirut” reporting on the Middle East’s Six Day War. She waited for his daily reports and listened as they blared from the radio across the kitchen of a farmhouse on the Canterbury Plains. Her mother, a busy mother of six, was relieved the war was over in six days.

What was it about Tom Greene’s reporting that inspired a young girl half a world away to want to become a war reporter? She’s still got no idea. Maybe it seemed a better option than the usual suggestions from helpful aunts and family friends who regularly asked: “So what are you going to be when you grow up, dear? A nurse, a secretary maybe or perhaps a teacher?” It was the 1960s after all.

Kate has never been near a war and has no ambition to do so. She has clocked up enough years in the journalism profession to know she is blessed by her more peaceful career path that has included news journalism, for which she won several major awards, followed by magazine editing since 1998, which has also earned her recognition. She edited NZ House & Garden for nine years before launching her own magazine NZ LIFE & Leisure which she owns with a business partner.

Like many businesses, magazine publishing is challenged by rapidly changing technology and its impact on daily life. She is a believer in the power of stories, and in the importance of aligning oneself with what is positive in life. And she is a hopeful realist about the future of her magazine that she believes does good.

“Our stories about unique New Zealanders doing interesting things have a positive impact on the direction and development of New Zealand. That is something worth doing inmy book.”

She counts herself very lucky to be a mother, grandmother, mother-in-law, sister, sister-in-law, daughter, aunt, great-aunt and she loves every one of these roles though that of grandmother takes the cake every time. She walks half-marathons with her sister twice a year and grows enough salad greens in her townhouse garden to keep three households scurvy-free.

Kate will share what she thinks she’s learned from so many decades in journalism and particularly in the past two decades of immersion in creating lifestyle magazines.

We're unable to cater to individual dietary requests other than food allergies and intolerances or religious requirements - these MUST be advised when you book. If you want to check if your requirements can be catered for, please email Liz on admin@aucklandexecutiveclub.org.nz prior to booking.