September 18, 2026

The Kaibosh team are as rapt as a cabbage to announce that Dame Diana Crossan is to follow Dame Patsy Reddy as our new Ambassador. Thankyou Dame Patsy! 🧡

Diana’s fresh from 9 years on the Kaibosh Board (2017-2025) and far too young to vegetate! She has had a wonderfully diverse career in charitable, commercial and government roles, including as the current Chair of WELLfed, the incredible Porirua-based charity using Kaibosh food. She chairs So They Can that serves children in Kenya and Tanzania whose schooling changes their lives, and was Chair, for 10 years, of the JR McKenzie Trust. You may also know her as the former Chief Executive of Wellington Free Ambulance from 2013 to 2017. 

Diana’s ‘on the money’ too, with roles as Retirement Commissioner, Chair of Massey University’s Financial Education Board, and big wig at AMP Aotearoa New Zealand and the UK. And she’s just finishing an 11-year term as Chair of Lifetime Retirement Income. 

Diana’s a tireless advocate for social justice. Since her first position as a Probation Officer, she has led NZ’s Equal Opportunities Unit, been Group Manager HR at the then Department of Justice and been on the boards of several social service charities. She promises she wasn’t the one to raise power prices as it was long ago that she was on the Contact Energy set-up group and did a stint as General Manager of Hydro, at the Clyde and Roxburgh dams. 

In her time volunteering on the Kaibosh Board of Trustees, Diana was part of the board team that helped steer the organisation through some serious growth – from one operational site to three, growing our reach to rescue more kai for communities, including seeing the team launch two Kaibosh Kitchens in Pito-one and Paraparaumu and our Second Harvest programme in Kāpiti and Horowhenua.

If you’ve ever met Diana, you’ll know her energy and drive to advocate for community groups who are helping local people. She has a true passion for food rescue and our Zero Food Poverty, Zero Food Waste vision – and for making good use of what we’ve got. ♻️ She’s a familiar face at Kaibosh Pōneke regularly turning up with a car boot full of egg cartons collected from around her suburb for our team to reuse when we’re sorting rescued eggs for community distribution. The team love catching up and she likes hearing what Kaibosh has been up to.  

As our Kaibosh champion, Diana will be sending out shoots to her wide networks and sprouting up across the region at business events and hui to help us spread the word. 🌱 Blooming marvelous! 🌸

Please join us welcoming our new Ambassador, Dame Diana 🎉

If your business or organisation would like to connect with Diana and learn more about the impact Kaibosh makes, email our team: support@kaibosh.org.nz. We’d love to hear from you.

Keen to lend a hand? Find out more about fun ways YOU and your team can fundraise to support our important mahi.