Vic Kulakov
Strategy, Planning & Communications
Vic Kulakov, Counsellor, Personal Development Coach & Speaker. He is a co-founder of Accelerate, a Personal Development Network, Property investor and Co-founder of trendyful.com – Lux Accessories Online Store. Victor’s greatest passion is empowering people to fall in love with life; to make positive changes, to have prosperity and success in all aspects of life.
Ole Pedersen
Strategy, Planning & Communications
Ole Pedersen is the General Manager of Media and Communications for the New Zealand Pacific Union Conference and also leads the Hope Channel ministry in New Zealand. With over 35 years of experience in sales, marketing, management, and leadership, Ole has held key roles at Sanitarium, the Swedish Union of Churches, and Nielsen Research.
Ole has a passion for reaching the unchurched and people of other faiths through media and communication and helping others to do the same.
He and his wife Lisa, married for 38 years, also run a property investment business. They have two adult children and are proud grandparents to five energetic grandchildren.
Sahara Anae
Growing Volunteers and Community
Sahara Anae is the International Programme Director at the Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA) of New Zealand, where she has worked 9 years. For almost 20 years of Sahara’s career, she had worked as a Water Engineer in the regional water sectors of Samoa (Operations Engineer, Samoa Water Authority), Auckland New Zealand (Planning Engineer, Watercare), and in Melbourne, Australia (Senior Engineer, City West Water). She continues to utilise her water engineer skills and her greatest achievement in her work; (she has lost count); is having been instrumental in supplying more than 2 million people with safe drinking water, and access to sanitation and hygiene facilities. Sahara’s love and passion is elevating indigenous knowledge and practices as solutions to sustainable development and being an advocate in this space.
Joanne Wieland
Growing Volunteers and Community
Joanne Wieland is an international development practitioner with a heart for community development, she has worked in this field for over a decade. Joanne has been serving as an International Program Manager at ADRA New Zealand for two years, where she works alongside in-country partners to support their initiatives with local communities. She hold a masters in International Development with a focus on climate impacts through life histories. When Jo is not working, you’ll find her enjoying the outdoors through working with volunteers on a youth camp, kayaking, or connecting on a board for a small trust between NZ and Nepal. Joanne has a strong belief that we are better when we collaborate, and the world is better when people of difference come together.