MEET JOSIE
Josie Pagani is a widely published commentator and writer who works in aid and development, governance and geopolitics.
She is the CEO of Child Fund New Zealand and a member of the Editorial Advisory Board of NZME. Her fortnightly column appears in New Zealand's capital morning daily, The Post, and on Stuff. She was a finalist for Best Columnist in the 2023 Voyager Media Awards. She is a frequent contributor to current affairs radio, TV, podcasts and online programmes and discussions and appears most weeks with Heather du Plessis-Allan's Huddle on Newstalk ZB. Her writing has appeared in several international journals, including the New York Times, Reader's Digest and National Geographic.
She is a former chair of the Board of Fair Trade Australia & New Zealand and Parents Centre and a former director of the Council for International Development.
She is a partner in a boutique management counsel and public affairs agency working on geopolitical and development projects.
She has been a ministerial press secretary, and a manager at the OECD Development Assistance Committee in Paris and at New Zealand’s aid and development agency.
Josie has been an advocate for prison reform, and a trustee of the Rewi Alley Foundation. She was a parliamentary candidate for New Zealand's Labour Party and Jim Anderton's Progressives, and was previously a member of UK Labour.
Born in New Zealand, she has lived in the US and France. She grew up in the United Kingdom and read English and Theatre at Warwick University for a Bachelor of Arts with Honours. She has a Graduate Certificate in International Law from Victoria University of Wellington. Josie has limited knowledge of German, French and te reo Maori.
She is the daughter of Emory University professor Fraser J Harbutt, and noted New Zealand writer Elspeth Sandys.
You can read a 2012 media profile of her here.
Josie and Sir Keir
