About us.

Jannat is an Australian born Punjabi and mother of three based in the Waikato, New Zealand. She is a CPA and former CIO with a Masters in Digital Business and is actively engaged in the New Zealand technology ecosystem with a focus on leveraging technology in innovative ways to benefit people, planet and economy.

Jannat’s initial career, spanning more than 10 years, was in the financial services industry leading mid to large-scale technology adoption initiatives including with MTF where they released New Zealand’s first online origination system for vehicle finance. Following that period of her life Jannat spent more than a decade in the vocational education sector designing, developing, including courseware, and teaching programmes across business and IT areas including project management and accounting information systems, as well as coordinating several collaborative projects and applied research initiatives involving students, staff and the wider community.

During her time at Wintec, Jannat launched IoT Waikato as an event series supporting innovation in IoT, smart cities and industry 4.0, which led to the role of Smart Cities Advisor at Hamilton City Council and Tech Sector Lead at Te Waka: Waikato Regional Economic Development Agency, coordinating the development of the Digital Waikato 2025 strategy and delivering several large events and initiatives bringing together small businesses, schools, tertiary providers, the technology sector and general businesses.

In mid 2020, Jannat took up a position with the University of Waikato and in January 2021 was offered the role of Associate Director at the Artificial Intelligence Institute where she led the launch of the Institute, planned and delivered the inaugural NZ Workshop on AI Research, and was involved in establishing the Artificial Intelligence Researchers Association. Over this time, Jannat was also the country director for New Zealand at the Smart Cities Council ANZ, pulling together the NZ Digital Twin Summit in 2021, and then as Interim Executive Director ANZ from February to September 2022, hosting the 2022 Aotearoa NZ Digital Twin Summit alongside working across capability development, data leadership and future of place programmes in both Australia and New Zealand.

Jannat is also a Trustee at Web Access Waikato Trust, Executive Director at the AI Researchers Association and a member of CPA Australia’s Digital Transformation Centre of Excellence.