Our Team

Stuart Pearson

Founder & Managing Partner

Stuart is an experienced investment professional with a background spanning impact funds, venture capital, banking, and start-ups across New Zealand and the United Kingdom. His career has centred on aligning commercial performance with meaningful environmental and social outcomes.

He has led investments across venture and growth-stage companies, with a focus on scalable, impact-driven businesses. Stuart has played an active role in renewable energy infrastructure and real estate investments — including leading syndicate investments into a public-private partnership housing fund, utility-scale solar PV projects, establishing a £100 million regional net zero impact fund, and supporting community energy initiatives through the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero’s Regional Net Zero Hubs.

Stuart holds a Master of Management Studies (First Class Honours) and a Bachelor of Business Analysis from the University of Waikato. He is also a Board Member of the Avon Pension Fund, overseeing over £6 billion in assets under management, including allocations to impact and renewable infrastructure investments.

Advisory Board

  • Rebecca Mills

    MANAGING DIRECTOR AT LEVER ROOM

    Rebecca Mills is a strategic specialist in delivering and measuring sustainability and carbon impact. In her role as Founder of The Lever Room she has lifted up a number of national level initiatives and has actively supported organisations to have positive impact at scale.

    Mills was shoulder-tapped to co-design the strategy with Sir Richard Branson (Co-Founder of Virgin Group) and Jochen Zeitz (CEO & Chairman of Harley-Davidson) for what is now known as The B Team — a group of business leaders advocating for business practices more centred on humanity and the climate. She has worked on some of the UK’s largest regeneration sites in her role as former Principal of Sustainable Design and Construction for the UK’s Environment Agency. She was selected as New Zealand’s first Global Shaper by the World Economic Forum in 2013.

    Most recently, Mills and her team have shared a new carbon measurement and certification approach. She has a Masters of Biosphere Science and impact measurement training from University of Oxford Saīd Business School.

  • Blake Richardson

    DIRECTOR AT TREADLITE & WTS HOMES

    Blake Richardson is an entrepreneur and early-stage investor with experience across property, technology, and waste. He holds a Bachelor of Laws (LLB) and a Bachelor of Commerce (BCom) from the University of Otago, as well as an MBA from Trinity College, Dublin. Additionally, he is a Chartered Member of the Institute of Directors.

    Blake has provided consulting services to numerous early-stage companies, focusing particularly on capital raising, acquisitions, and preparation for sale. He has been actively involved in the venture capital, serving as a former director of Punakaki, a member of the Investment Committee at Purpose Capital, and an LPAC member at the Climate VC Fund.

    As a co-founder of Sabre Developments, Blake has explored alternative ownership models in residential property development. More recently, he co-founded the tyre recycling and collection company Treadlite aiming to turn a complicated waste stream into a resource.

  • Katherine (Kath) Dewar

    FOUNDER & MANAGING DIRECTOR AT GOODSENSE

    As founder and Managing Director at GoodSense, a Certified B Corporation, Katherine has been a leader in ethical marketing and sustainability communications since 2003. Katherine is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Marketing and a media advocate for ethical marketing practice.

    Katherine leads the team vision, policies, R&D and stakeholder engagement at GoodSense. The ethical marketing team focus on communicating for impact and in support of systems change. They have a strongly collaborative and strategic approach with particular strengths in technology, energy, software, manufacturing, infrastructure and built environment work.

    A British migrant to Aotearoa New Zealand, Katherine began her career in the UK, working in tech, telco, financial services, not for profit and FMCG marketing. She maintains close ties in the UK and spends time in England and Scotland each year.

    In New Zealand, Katherine is serving her second term as an elected Board member for the Sustainable Business Network (SBN) and as well as having an advisory role with Antipodean Ventures she is on the advisory board for the University of Auckland Business School Circular Economy hub.

    Katherine has helped judge the Mindful Money ethical investing awards three times, and the SBN Awards seven times, awards in which GoodSense themselves were finalists in 2013 and 2021. Katherine was on the Advisory Board for ethical VOIP telco Conversant and a Director for an eLearning platform as well as having served on the Executive of a number of environmental not for profits.