Catherine Isaac

Catherine Isaac is a past president of the New Zealand political party ACT, and managing director of Awaroa Partners. She was formerly director of JM Communications. After a previous divorce, she married former Business Roundtable director Roger Kerr in 2010.

Isaac was raised in Christchurch and completed a BA in English and Languages at the University of Canterbury in 1970. She is the niece of Diana Isaac.

Isaac was communications and public affairs manager for the National Provident Fund through its extensive restructuring from 1988 to 1991. In the 18 month lead-up to the completion of the NPF tender process Isaac was also General Manager, Regional Operations, responsible for management of six regional offices and five branch offices.

She worked for four years as a communications consultant to the New Zealand Treasury, the GST Launch Team and various ministers of the crown.

Prior to that, Isaac worked for three years as a public relations and communications consultant for a Washington DC consultancy. She spent three years working as a current affairs journalist for Television New Zealand and four years in documentary film production with the New Zealand National Film Unit.

Isaac was a member of the Board of the Wellington Community Trust from 1999 to 2003.

She was a founding director of the St Lukes' Group from 1993 to 1996. From 1990 to 1994 she was a Trustee of the Royal New Zealand Ballet. From 1995 to 2001 she served on the Board of Trustees of Wellington College.

Isaac was elected President of ACT New Zealand in March 2001. Her bid for the presidency was support by the founders of ACT, Sir Roger Douglas and Derek Quigley. A key feature of her presidency was the Liberal Project, which was designed to focus the party on its classical liberal roots. However her moves to get the party more focussed on liberal issues were relatively unsuccessful, and in the 2002 election the party largely repeated its socially conservative positions which it had used in 1999.

...
Wikipedia