Award-winner joins board
Dr Sina Cotter Tait is keen to contribute to ŌCHT’s mission to sustainably provide sector-leading community housing.
One of our newest trustees is an engineer keen to help build an even better future.
Dr Sina Cotter Tait is looking forward to the distant future when her children and grandchildren ask about her work with the Ōtautahi Community Housing Trust board.
“One day, when my kids and mokopuna ask me about the Trust, I hope they’ll be proud to see their māmā was even a small part of some really cool work,” Sina says.
“If that happens, then that’s one way I’ll know I know I’ve contributed in such a way that’s made things sustainably better – it’s got to be at the heart of what we do.
“That’s got to be a measure of success.”
Sina is one of two new independent trustees appointed to the ŌCHT board. She and Darren Evans began their three-year terms in June 2022.
The Governance NZ Women on Boards Emerging Leader 2021 says she’s relishing the chance to contribute to ŌCHT’s important work for the people of Ōtautahi/Christchurch.
“I strongly identify with ŌCHT’s work to provide great homes to people who are fundamentally in need, some of our most vulnerable,” Sina says.
“There’s a lot of complexity there; in supporting tenants, in maintaining homes and communities, through to building new homes and planning for the future.
“It’s a constantly changing space and it’s not just about asset management – at its core, it’s about people, and that’s important to me.”
Sina holds an MBA and has a PhD in construction management, and is director and principal engineer of her Christchurch-based consultancy, Collective Success.
She serves on the boards of the New Zealand Infrastructure Commission, CEAS, the Engineering NZ Foundation, the North Otago Irrigation Company and Whitestone Contracting.
She’s founding co-director of the Pasefika Trustees Network and is on the Canterbury-Kaikoura Lotteries Committee and the Christ Church Cathedral Reinstatement Review Panel, and on the Cashmere High School Board of Trustees.
She also sponsors the Cotter Tait Scholarship at the University of Canterbury for Māori and Pasifika engineering students and is a member of the University of Canterbury Pasifika Advisory Group – as-well-as the Centre for Advanced Infrastructure Solutions/Building Innovation Partnership.
Her professional, strategy, and governance work’s varied but linked by common strands in her commitment to improve organisation, sector and community outcomes, and to equity and social justice.
“Ultimately, you want to help make things better for now and into the future; I’d like to help that happen, to keep the positive momentum, with ŌCHT,” Sina says.
“The Trust is building and maintaining great homes and supporting people and communities across Ōtautahi/Christchurch in ways that really are leading the sector.
“The Trust has achieved a lot in ŌCHT’s first six years. I look forward to being part of an organisation that’s making such a significant, and growing, contribution to our people and city.”
Welcome to the ŌCHT board Dr Cotter Tait!