Ella Henry

Henry was born in 1954 in Kaitaia.[2] She is from a poor family, and was the first in her whānau (extended family) to attend university, and went despite less-than-positive experiences at high school.[3][4] She was expelled from school at the age of 15, but when she got to university she found out "[she] wasn't as stupid as [she] thought [she] was".[5] Henry has a Bachelor of Arts and a Master of Philosophy from the University of Auckland.[1] Her MPhil thesis was titled Rangatira wahine: Maori women managers & leadership, and was completed in 1994.[6] In 2012 she completed a PhD titled Te Wairua Auaha: emancipatory Māori entrepreneurship in screen production at Auckland University of Technology, supervised by Pare Keiha and Charles Crothers.[7]

From 2002 to 2004, Henry was Head of Puukenga School of Māori Education at Unitec Institute of Technology, before moving to the Auckland University of Technology, where she is Director of Māori Advancement.[8] She was promoted to full professor in 2022.[9]

Henry has a background in the screen industry, having been a writer, actor, commentator and presenter. Between 2004 and 2007 she was the host of the Whakaata Māori show called Ask your Aunties,[3] and played the occasional character of Auntie Kuini on Shortland Street.[10] She helped to establish Nga Aho Whakaari (the Association of Māori in Screen Production), and was then appointed as chair.[8] She has also chaired the Association of Women in Film and Television New Zealand.[8]

She was executive director for Greenpeace in 1994 and in 2001 was a Human Rights Commissioner.[2] Henry has been a Treaty negotiator for Ngātikahu ki Whangaroa iwi and chaired the Post-Settlement Governance Entity until 2019.[11][8]

Henry says:

“I’ve been in the tertiary education sector for 36 years. I have had the opportunity to complete a number of degrees and study my people and culture. I didn’t know that we had such an extraordinary history until I went to university. When you learn stuff like that it really does change the way you look at who you are, what you are and where you fit in the world.”[5]

Henry was appointed a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit in the 2022 Queen's Birthday and Platinum Jubilee Honours, for services to Māori, education and media.[11]

• Ella Henry; Hone Pene (May 2001). "Kaupapa Maori: Locating Indigenous Ontology, Epistemology and Methodology in the Academy". Organization. 8 (2): 234–242. doi:10.1177/1350508401082009. ISSN 1350-5084. Wikidata Q115567722.
• Howard H Frederick; Ella Henry. "Innovation and entrepreneurship amongst Pakeha and Maori in New Zealand". International Research in the Business Disciplines: 115–140. doi:10.1016/S1074-7877(03)04006-6. ISSN 1074-7877. Wikidata Q115567720.
• Chellie Spiller; Rachel Maunganui Wolfgramm; Ella Henry; Robert Pouwhare (12 December 2019). "Paradigm warriors: Advancing a radical ecosystems view of collective leadership from an Indigenous Māori perspective". Human Relations. 73 (4): 516–543. doi:10.1177/0018726719893753. ISSN 0018-7267. Wikidata Q115567716.
• Ella Henry; Jamie Newth; Chellie Spiller (November 2017). "Emancipatory Indigenous social innovation: Shifting power through culture and technology". Journal of Management and Organization. 23 (6): 786–802. doi:10.1017/JMO.2017.64. ISSN 1833-3672. Wikidata Q115567719.
• Ella Y. Henry; Leo-Paul Dana; Patrick J. Murphy (13 October 2017). "Telling their own stories: Māori entrepreneurship in the mainstream screen industry". Entrepreneurship and Regional Development. 30 (1–2): 118–145. doi:10.1080/08985626.2017.1388445. ISSN 0898-5626. Wikidata Q115567718.
• Ella Henry; Rachel Wolfgramm (9 December 2015). "Relational leadership – An indigenous Māori perspective". Leadership: 174271501561628. doi:10.1177/1742715015616282. ISSN 1742-7150. Wikidata Q115567717.
• Pouarii Tanner (2018), New Pacific Standard: Using Tivaevae to Inform a New Strategic Business Model for Pacific Art and Design, Tuwhera Open Access Publisher, hdl:10292/11650, Wikidata Q112938402

• Indigenous 100 episode on Ella Henry