Lesley Tilley   – Lesley@kiaorausa.org  

Lesley was born in Kawakawa and her family slowly gravitated down to the North Shore in Auckland spending a few years in both Helensville and in Wellsford on the way.

Lesley attended Auckland, Canterbury and Massey Universities. She gained a B.Ed, a Teaching Certificate and a Speech and Language Pathologist qualification. She soon moved to Adelaide for 10 years, studied for a further degree in Speech Pathology and consequently worked there as Head of the Speech Pathology Department in a major teaching hospital.

The United States called and in the 1980’s moved to California. She continues to use her Speech Pathology skills as a Consultant for various School Districts.

Lesley and her husband visit the NZ whanau at least every couple of years, and her children enjoy very fond memories of Aotearoa. Lesley was a key organizer of the Christchurch Relief Effort on Treasure Island that raised over $21,000 for Christchurch.

Lesley is Founder and Chairman of KiaOra(TM)USA, whose mission is to continue to be strategic catalysts for visionary New Zealanders and Americans, and she has a proven track record of connecting key players with specific experts across many fields. The company operates in the areas of business, academia, NZ investment, sports and the arts, and also focuses on harnessing NZ youth who are in the Bay Area.

She also arranged the Mayoral Reception for SF Mayor Lee, the visiting Christchurch City Council delegation and often brings the entire Kiwi community together for such events.

Over the past several years Lesley has also been actively coordinating events with the San Francisco Golden Gate Rugby Club and some of these include: NZ Art & Wine Show, Rugby World Cup screening, and the Atamira Maori Dance Troupe  (along with a Hangi).

Of course the America’s Cup Summer was a very busy period where many lasting and fruitful contacts for and with New Zealanders were made. Lesley engaged many of the “Kiwis on the ground” leading them to tours of the America’s Cup boats(both Oracle and Team Emirates NZ). She was a constant ambassador and encouraged many to venture out on the water in a variety of charters, to become actively involved in reinforcing and expanding the NZ presence in San Francisco and in supporting all of the Kiwis on all of the racing teams – of course this also involved promoting NZ businesses, beers, foods, and all things Kiwi.

The KiaOra(TM)USA NZ Networking Speaker Series is continuing and a selection of the highly respected and extremely accomplished speakers including: Sir Peter Snell, Sir Ken Stevens, Sir Vaughan Jones, Sean Gourley, Ron Mayes, Bill Bailey, Kimberley Chambers, Steven Keung, Dr Lance O’Sullivan and Alan Hall.

Upcoming Speakers for 2016 include Sir John Hood, Shaun Quincy, Claudia Batten and Steve Outtrim – all highly accomplished Kiwis who are really making their mark in the USA.

As the President of NZAASF, Lesley follows the mission to promote and foster good relations between New Zealand and the US through a variety of social events held in the Bay Area on a regular basis.  Some of these include an Annual Hangi, a Waitangi Day Banquet at the Golden Gate Yacht Club Pub nights, a relaxed Picnic, and an End of Year Party. Please check out to sign up for a free complimentary newsletter.

                                                           Jim Tilley   – jim@kiaorausa.org

Mr. James Tilley is a highly regarded expert with a wealth of experience in guiding risk assessment activities of banks across the US, SE Asia, Australia and New Zealand. His in-depth experience in commercial credit risk analysis while with Moody’s Investor Service continued to increase his knowledge base for understanding and generating innovative process improvements in the international banking community. His extensive experience with the IBM Corporation ranges from a seat on the President’s staff to managing executive level functions in multiple countries for many years. In addition he is a serial entrepreneur having co-founded several separate and highly successful start-ups both in the US and overseas.

Mr. Tilley also speaks conversational Indonesian which has been an invaluable asset when working in the business world in Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia and southern Thailand.

Mr. Tilley has authored business related books and many articles. Published books cover subjects ranging from intellectual property protection in software to the future of technology in banking. Two were later published by IBM for use internally for expanding and creating excellence in understanding of IT conversions in banking. He also co-authored on line courses including IP protection. The IP protection course, was used internally by IBM for its new employee education enhancement courses.

Currently and in the recent past, Mr. Tilley continues to act as a consultant for companies establishing themselves in the US marketplace from Australia and New Zealand. He is the US Advisor for the Australian company WealthMaker Financial Services (WMFS) bringing the “Aspire” product into the US mortgage lending and wealth generation arena. Aspire’s US patented process provides a customer the ability to grow a significant investment portfolio and concurrently service a home loan at no more than the outlay for the mortgage payments alone.