Mary Quin is the formerchief executive at Callaghan Innovation, was an executive at Xerox in New York City, and a dual citizen of the United States and New Zealand. In 1998, while traveling in Yemen her tourist group was kidnapped and four tourists were killed. After surviving being a hostage, she provided the FBI with information that allowed British cleric, Abu Hamza, to be extradited to the United States to for his role in the kidnapping. She wrote a book about that affair: Kidnapped in Yemen: One Woman's Amazing Escape from Captivity (The Lyons Press, ISBN ).
The New Zealand Herald named her as one of two 2014 New Zealanders of the Year.