COIN South adds firepower to innovation team with multiple new hires.

COIN South has announced the appointment of three new staff members to its team: Cathy Peters, Claire Spencer, and Anna Kirkwood.

As Louise Evans, COIN South’s Chief Activator and General Manager, enters her final weeks before heading off on maternity leave, Cathy Peters steps into the founder-facing Chief Activator role.

Peters has experience in project management, design thinking, and systems change. She has worked extensively in the innovation space as a consultant and through roles with Healthy Families Invercargill and previously Venture Southland, now Great South.

Says Peters: “I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to work with local founders and to support innovation and entrepreneurship in the South.”

Evans says the team and board are delighted to have Cathy at the table. “As a strategic mind with a lot of mana in the community, Cathy is perfectly placed to champion innovators in our region and connect founders and ambitious minds with the people and opportunities they need to scale.”

Rounding out the new additions to the team are Claire Spencer who is stepping out of her board role to take up the operations side of General Manager, and Anna Kirkwood facilitating and coordinating COIN South’s marketing efforts.

And there’s plenty to be getting on with. In the pipeline for 2022 is a product-based incubator for ambitious foodies in collaboration with The Pioneers Food Hub and Great South, a female founders leadership academy in collaboration with the Chamber of Commerce, a course on failing well, and an innovation drive that will see existing businesses relook at their offerings.

“Naturally, I am extremely disappointed that I’m going to miss out on all of the fun,” Evans says, “but COIN South is being left in very capable hands and I’m excited to see where this new team directs the ship.”

“I have the utmost confidence that together Cathy, Claire, Anna, Fran, and Nikki will continue to do what COIN does best – seek out talented Southlanders and help strap them to a rocket.”