our latest annual report
2025 Annual Report
Covering the year from 1 April 2024 to 31 March 2025
As Chair of TUANZ, I am proud to reflect on a year of both challenge and progress for our organisation and the wider digital community in New Zealand.
This year, we navigated a challenging financial environment—as have many of our members. Despite strong engagement across our programmes and events, rising operational costs—particularly for our flagship conferences and key initiatives—placed pressure on our financial performance, resulting in both an operational and net deficit for the year. While this outcome is not where we aim to be long-term, it underscores the importance of our ongoing work to diversify income and strengthen our financial resilience.
You can read the 2025 Annual Report here.
The Board, working closely with the management team, has implemented a range of additional control measures to manage our financial performance moving forward. We are also developing a strategy to grow our cash reserves over time, ensuring TUANZ remains viable through both prosperous and challenging periods. In parallel, we continue to evolve our partnership and membership models to align with the current and future needs of the organisation.
A key governance workstream over the past year has been the creation of a new TUANZ constitution. Recognising the need to modernise and future proof our foundational document and to meet new legislation requirements, we initiated a comprehensive review and design process that included consultation with our members. Your feedback has been invaluable in shaping a constitution that reflects our evolving role and values. We look forward to our new constitution being formally approved at this year’s Annual General Meeting, ensuring our governance framework remains fit for purpose.
Amid these challenges, we celebrated significant achievements. Our partnership with WISPA saw the Rural Connectivity Symposium reach record attendance, and the Tech Users Summit continued to cement its place as a key event in the technology industry calendar. We were excited to relaunch the TUANZ Member Awards in 2024 as part of the Tech Users Summit—a move that reflects our commitment to celebrating excellence within our own community. We also launched new member-only communities, including our AI Working Party and the Māori and Pasifika Hui series. These initiatives have already attracted strong participation and are helping shape the future of digital inclusion and innovation in Aotearoa.
TUANZ’s role as a trusted advocate remained central to our vision. Last year we developed and shared a series of position statements with policymakers, ensuring that the voices of technology users are heard on critical issues such as AI, digital equity, and connectivity. These statements will continue to guide our advocacy into 2025 and beyond.
Our partnerships remain vital to our success. I want to thank Skills Group, Chorus, Enable Networks, InternetNZ, and our newest partner, Amazon Web Services, for their continued support. Their contributions have been instrumental in sustaining key programmes like FLINT and NextGen, which continue to empower emerging technology leaders across the country.
Finally, I extend my heartfelt thanks to our members, Board, and operational team. Your support, leadership, and dedication enable TUANZ to continue championing the needs of all technology users in New Zealand.
Ngā mihi,
Tristan Ilich
TUANZ Board Chair
