The Mana Moana Experience was an integrated leadership programme for Pasifika leaders which ran from 2018 - 2022, hosted by Leadership NZ and funded by Foundation North. It brought together the experience, expertise and networks of Leadership New Zealand and a research-based indigenous knowledge-derived specialist programme created out of the postdoctoral research by Dr. Karlo Mila (Leadership NZ Alum 2013).

In 2022, with Puanga rising in the western sky, at a time of renewal, replenishment, a time for connection and celebration, a seasonal shift was announced.  

5 years before, a dream was woven from the magical fibres of Dr Karlo Mila’s post-doctoral research and a shared aspiration to uplift the extraordinary leadership that is present in Pacific communities in Aotearoa. With the help of Foundation North, the support of the Leadership New Zealand board, the hard work of the LNZ team, Dr Mila gave this dream shape in the form of the Mana Moana Experience—a movement of Pacific leaders who know who they are and where they are from, who can carry this knowledge into their lives and leadership, and can contribute in their most purposeful way to the collective and intergenerational wellbeing of people and planet.

Mana Moana was birthed with a vision to uphold and uplift Pacific leadership, and grow a movement, and Leadership New Zealand celebrates the next phase in the Mana Moana movement—the establishment of a fale for Mana Moana, a Pacific led social enterprise, governed by Pacific leaders, to power up and guide the next waves of the Mana Moana Experience, and do much else besides.

As Mana Moana and Leadership New Zealand unlash our evolutionary vaka, in preparation for new journeys, new oceans, new constellations for both entities, the whole community of Leadership New Zealand acknowledges the human connections which will endure, long after the lashings have fallen away. Pūmanawa Kaiārahi, Leadership NZ and Mana Moana will remain in sacred relationship always—continuing to deliver the Tū Mau Mana Moana programme, in partnership with MBIE, and upholding and uplifting the mana of Mana Moana.

Leadership New Zealand offers a massive mihi to Dr Karlo Mila, the founder of Mana Moana. Karlo’s leadership is breathtaking, light bending and inspiring and her vision for the Mana Moana movement is catalytic. We acknowledge the deep alignment between Karlo’s work and Leadership New Zealand’s.

We acknowledge Pakilau o Aotearoa Manase Lua—his unerring support for Mana Moana and Leadership New Zealand, along with his generosity, grounded wisdom, vision for change and wider community service, advocacy and activism.

Cecilia Vakameilalo Kioa, programme manager for MME, and the source of manaaki, warmth and alofa that sits at the heart of Mana Moana. Her work to support and resource the movement—with kai, with logistics, with love—has been an essential part of the Mana Moana experience.

To all our Mana Moana alumni whānau—changemakers, waveriders, depthdivers. You will always be a part of Leadership New Zealand. We acknowledge all that you are, all that you are becoming. You are part of an alumni community of more than 600 leadership New Zealand alumni who are working alongside you for change, guided by purpose, connected by your experiences together. We lay down a blessing for you - may our sacred connections be sustained forever, and may you be sustained in your sacred connections with each other, with your ancestral knowledge, with this movement. Ofa atu! 

We offer a huge mihi to the courageous partners who helped bring this shared vision to life. Foundation North—whose courageous support for Mana Moana enabled all this magic to happen. To Creative New Zealand, the JR Mckenzie Trust, and Community Trust Southland. Your belief in this work has enabled the foundations to be established for a vibrant, visionary and sustainable Pacific led organisation, who will take this kaupapa to the next level.

Leadership New Zealand will continue to support Mana Moana’s work to uphold and uplift Pacific leadersihp:

• Remembering, recalling and revitalizing the ancestral legacies of Te Moana Nui A Kiwa - the best of who we are;

• Capitalizing on, connecting to and consolidating current leadership – harnessing the best of what we have right now; and,

• Nurturing and supporting the most optimal and exciting future – working towards the promise of what we could be.

Dr Karlo Mila: Programme Director

Karlo is a Fulbright Scholar, researcher, author, academic and award-winning poet. She is a Pacific woman of Tongan, Palangi and Samoan descent. She has a masters in social work and a PhD in sociology focused on the culture, identity and context of New Zealand-born Pacific peoples. Her postdoctoral fellowship focused on developing the indigenous intervention Mana Moana and testing it for feasibility and acceptability. 

Karlo has worked in the area of Pacific health, mental health, research and policy for fifteen years. Formerly the Manager, Pacific Health Research at the Health Research Council, she most recently worked for the Pacific NGO Le Va (Pacific Inc). Karlo is Leadership NZ Alum 2013. Active in the arts, she currently has a grant from Creative New Zealand to write a novel part-time. She is a mother to three boys aged 12, 13 and one.

Moana, meaning ‘ocean’, is a Polynesian word that can be found in 35 contemporary Pasifika languages. While Pasifika cultures are diverse, it is the sea, philosopher and writer Epeli Hau’ofa, points out, that all of the distinctive cultures of Pasifika have in common, shaped by a continuous engagement with, and adaptation to, the largest ocean in the world (Hau’ofa, 2008). The ocean connects us all.

Mana is an Oceanic word that can be found in 26 Pasifika languages. It refers to power, energy, abundance, authority, miracles – the ability to manifest the energy, flow and fortune of the intangible with grace and efficacy so that it is recognised and impactful in the tangible world.

Mana Moana, then, is about the power, energy, vitality sourced to being from the moana and indigenous to the South Pacific region and connected to that unique cultural legacy of knowing and being.