Chellie Spiller (Ngāti Kahungunu ki Wairoa) is a Professor at the University of Waikato’s Management School. She is a committed advocate for Māori leadership, management, governance and business development. Chellie is leading a transdisciplinary team of Māori economy researchers exploring Māori economies of wellbeing, with a strong whānau focus.
Chellie is a member of the Marsden Fund Council and convenor of the EHB panel. She is a 2022 Leader-in-Residence, Atlantic Institute, Oxford University and a Fellow, International Leadership Association. She was a Fulbright Senior Scholar at the Harvard Kennedy School and the University of Arizona, a recipient of a Research Excellence Award, Dame Mira Szászy Māori Alumni Award, National Māori and Academic Excellence Award.
Chellie is a co-author of a book on traditional Polynesian navigation, Wayfinding Leadership: Groundbreaking Wisdom for Developing Leaders (2015), with Hoturoa Barclay-Kerr and John Panoho. Wayfinding Leadership was shortlisted for the Māori Book of the Year awards, 2016. Wayfinding Leadership is included in the list of 150 books by leading Māori authors assembled by the Royal Society of New Zealand to celebrate 150 years of Māori non-fiction publications.