THE HONOURABLE RUTH RICHARDSON
 Ruth Richardson the politician has a well-known profile nationally and internationally. During the remarkable reform era in New Zealand from the mid-1980's to the mid-1990's, Ruth established her reform reputation. As New Zealand's Minister of Finance from 1990 - 1993 she was the principal architect of New Zealand's second wave of reform, complementing the first wave of reforms initiated in the mid 1980s by New Zealand's other well-known Minister of Finance, Sir Roger Douglas. Her institutional framework for the conduct of fiscal policy, the Fiscal Responsibility Act 1994, is widely regarded as setting international best practice, and is a cornerstone of New Zealand's economic framework.

 In the years since Ruth left Parliament in 1994, she has had an extensive international practice as a public policy consultant. She has advised widely on strategies designed to achieve the practice of good governance and the development of high quality policy frameworks. Her client base has spanned:

• Sovereign Governments.
• International Agencies.
• Ministers of Finance and their Ministries.
• Private Sector Business Agencies and "Think Tanks" who have an interest in promoting the twin virtues of good governance and good policy.

 Geographically her work has taken her to nearly every corner of the globe: Europe; Latin America; the Middle East; Africa; Asia and the Pacific.

 Ruth Richardson the businesswoman has a developing private sector profile. In parallel with her work as a public policy consultant, Ruth has established a substantial private sector practice in corporate governance. Her directorships have involved her in a wide spectrum of business activity and the responsibilities she has shouldered on her Boards have contributed to her growing level of expertise in many aspects of corporate governance. Consistent with the trend to globalisation her Boards are not exclusively concentrated in New Zealand. Board work takes Ruth not just to New Zealand locations, but regularly to Australia, the Pacific, the U.S.A. and even Latin America.

 ANDREW WRIGHT
 Born in 1950, he graduated with an honours degree in law from Victoria University of Wellington. He spent the next ten years as a legal policy adviser in the Head Office of the Department of Justice (where he met and married Ruth in 1975) working in fields as diverse as commercial law, penal law, electoral law and liquor law. In 1979 he was appointed as special project officer in charge of implementing a fundamental reform of New Zealand's electoral laws following a failed attempt to computerise the country's electoral rolls in 1978.

 Upon the birth of their daughter in 1983, Andrew resigned from his legal position to take care of their child (Ruth having been elected to the New Zealand Parliament in 1981). He also took up a part time lectureship in law at Lincoln University, where he taught law to commerce and farm management degree students as well as farm management diploma students. In 1990 he resigned from Lincoln University following Ruth's appointment as Minister of Finance.