Designing better workplaces and people systems one step at a time

Kia ora,

I'm Phillipa Gimmillaro, and I work with growing New Zealand organisations at the point where the informal ways of working that served them well start to need more structure. It's a time full of possibility, and an independent, experienced view can help you make the most of it.
For more than eight years I led people teams at a leading New Zealand hospitality group, finishing as Chief People Officer. Over that time the business grew from 120 to more than 650 employees across ten sites, and I built the people function and organisational structures to support that growth. Along the way we reached 50/50 gender representation in senior leadership, and I designed Māori and Pacific scholarships, diversity traineeships and neurodiverse employment pathways.
More recently, with a New Zealand public sector organisation, I led collective bargaining through to settlement, updated employment agreements for the 2026 law changes and reported to the board on culture. I also design HR scenarios and scoring standards used to test how AI systems handle complex behavioural layers and people decisions, which keeps me close to how AI is changing HR in practice. Earlier in my career I gained global experience leading customer relations and corporate training with Carnival Corporation in the USA and UK.
I'm a Chartered Member of Human Resources New Zealand, was named HR Director of the Year at the 2023 HRD New Zealand Awards, and completed my MBA with Distinction at the Australian Institute of Business in 2026. I've also completed the Institute of Directors' Governance Essentials course, and I'm a business mentor with Business Mentors New Zealand.