Denise Bijoux

Denise Bijoux is a multi-skilled community-led development advocate who works with communities, groups, iwi, hapu, organisations, business and government. 

Her expertise and experience, both strategic and practical, lead back to locally-led change, a concept she is highly passionate about. She works throughout Aotearoa, across  a wide range of areas, including health, social justice, community-led development, resilience, urban planning and government planning at local, regional and national levels. Her roles across these areas have encompassed social researcher, evaluator, facilitator, trainer and project manager. 

Denise holds the philosophy that we are more than the sum of our parts. This has informed and inspired her work as director of Catalyse - a network of strategic and creative professionals passionate about activating locally-led regeneration and change. She has infused the organisation with her skills in community building, placemaking, social wellbeing and justice, diversity, neighbourhoods, migration and integration and reflective mentoring.

She also works as a learning and outcomes convenor for Inspiring Communities, working to increase understanding of the links between intent, action and outcomes for the national community-led development organisation. 

Originally hailing from Taranak,i and now based in Auckland, Denise was a recipient of the Winston Churchill Fellowship in 2012, and later spent time exploring the influence of community-led development on systems change in the United States and Canada. Bringing this learning back to New Zealand, she continued her journey of investing in people over projects - a concept she adheres to in all of her work and in any way she can to help improve the lives of others.