In this episode I talk with Chloe Wright, Co-Founder and unremunerated CEO of the Wright Family Foundation. The Foundation provides funds and assistance to improve the educational, emotional, and psychological wellbeing of New Zealanders and supports more than 25 projects and organisations across the country enabling people to reach their full potential. 

Chloe received the New Zealand Order of Merit in 2021 for services to philanthropy, education, and health. Although Chloe doesn’t need to work, she chooses to do so, because she has a passion for making a difference, and that she is clearly doing. 

In addition to leading the Foundation, Chloe is Founder and Director of Birthing Centre, which offers extensive postnatal support in several locations across the country. She co-founded BestStart Educare, New Zealand’s largest early learning education organisation, with 300 centres looking after over 20,000 children. Chloe is the Patron of SuperGrans Aotearoa and WriteMark Plain English Awards Trust, Kids’ Lit Quiz, and the New Zealand Spelling Bee. She is also the Founder and Architect of Mothers Matter, which seeks to achieve for women what is rightfully theirs, excellent perinatal and postnatal care, and the ongoing support they need to thrive after giving birth.   

In this episode, Chloe talks candidly about how we should be investing more into support for mums and their newborn children, as “the first 1000 days are the most important”. She believes that whatever start a child has shapes their future as well as that of our society, so we need them to have what they need to thrive. Chloe’s own experiences of childhood, being the youngest of nine children, and having five of her own children, gave her what she feels was the best start in life, and she wants to see that for every child. When Chloe and her husband returned to New Zealand, after doing extremely well overseas, they wanted to use what resources they had to make a difference. Chloe had a dream of doing so in Africa but, once back in New Zealand, she realised that there was much work to be done here. Chloe has worked hard to understand the problem and has seen some of the terrible situations children are being brought up in, and wants to help change that through positive engagement and education. 

Almost all of what Chloe is involved in centres around the start of life, from advocating for improved maternity care through her birthing centres and Mothers Matter forum, to early childhood education through BestStart, and then supporting the wider family as Patron of SuperGrans. 

In this interview Chloe demonstrates the attributes of a great leader, someone who can and does make things happen. Chloe cares and, because she cares, she takes time to become aware of what’s needed and where. 

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