Mai Chen (LLB(Hons)(Otago)(First Class)), LLM (Harvard Law School) is the Managing Partner of award-winning law firm Chen Palmer Public and Employment Law Specialists and an Adjunct Professor at the University of Auckland School of Law. She was previously Adjunct Professor in Commercial and Public Law at the University of Auckland Business School. Mai sits on the BNZ Board of Directors.
Mai is one of NZ’s top constitutional and administrative law experts and a strategic problem solver of law, public policy, and business problems.
Mai is the best-selling author of Public Law Toolbox and Transforming Auckland: The Creation of Auckland Council (LexisNexis)
Mai was the inaugural Chair of NZ Global Women, and founded and is the inaugural chair of NZ Asian Leaders. She was also instrumental in founding the BEST Pacifica Leadership Academy.
Mai was a Top 10 finalist for 2014 New Zealander of the Year; won the supreme Judges Panel Award and the Professional Excellence Award at the New Zealand Chinese Business Awards in 2012, the Business and Entrepreneur Women of Influence Award in 2013, and the Next Magazine’s Business Woman of the Year in 2011.
Mai sat on the Securities Commission, Advisory Board of AMP Life Limited (NZ), on the NZ Board of Trade and Enterprise’s Beachheads Programme, the Asia New Zealand Foundation, the Royal New Zealand Ballet Board, and the Councils of Victoria University of Wellington and Wellington Polytechnic.
Mai sold her website willtolive.co.nz rebranded as www.my-Bucketlist.co.nz, to Perpetual Guardian in April 2015.
Mai has completed the Superdiversity Stocktake: Implications for Business, Government and New Zealand, published on the Superdiversity Centre for Law, Policy and Business Website. Chen Palmer and the Superdiversity Centre have also recently entered into a joint venture with NZ Media and Entertainment to form Cultural Bridge to advise government and companies on how to communicate with diverse New Zealanders.
Mai was born in Taiwan and emigrated to NZ in 1970 with her family.
View Mai Chen’s CV here.