As New Zealand’s Finance Minister from 1990 to 1993, the Honorable Ruth Richardson drove the nation’s reform agenda and laid the foundation for its economic turnaround. Richardson was first elected to Parliament in 1981. In 1987, she was promoted to shadow minister of finance. Once in office as the Minister of Finance in 1990, she set about making radical reform, implementing market-style policies to secure New Zealand’s economic recovery. These involved a major fiscal correction, deregulation of the labor market, recommitment to price stability, and early initiatives in redesigning social policy. On the back of those reforms, the economy grew by 20 percent, and New Zealand recorded the highest rate of job growth within the international Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

Since leaving Parliament in 1994, Richardson has been in demand as a policy consultant to governments around the world on lifting standards of governance; on privatization; and on comprehensive macro, micro, labor market, public sector, and social policy reforms. Richardson mentors public and private figures extensively and has an extensive governance career, currently as the Chairman of the Kula Fund and New Zealand Merino Ltd., and as a director of Synlait Milk Ltd. and Bank of China (NZ) Ltd. She was previously director of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand. She has received the Lincoln Medal from Lincoln University and honorary doctorates from the University of Canterbury and the Universidad Francisco Marroquin (Guatemala). In 1995 she published an insider account of the politics of reform in Making a Difference (Christchurch, NZ: Shoal Bay Press).

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