TEMUERA HALL INVESTS IN CONNECTION
SUBJECT Temuera Hall
OCCUPATION Funds manager
INTERVIEWER Erin Castellas
PHOTOGRAPHER Lottie Hedley
LOCATION Takapuna, New Zealand
DATE October, 2020
I met Temeura Hall about a year and a half ago on a trip to New Zealand. He opened a meeting as a Māori elder, welcoming us with his warmth, his words, and an energy that I felt held the weight of wisdom and something bigger beyond himself. In that meeting, he talked about the concept of aroha, which he also shares in this interview. The concept of aroha is one in which you live and act as if you can feel the breath of another – meaning, keeping others close to you as you navigate life, living beyond just yourself.
Over the past year-and-a-half, I have had the pleasure of getting to know more about Tem and his work as founder of the Māori values-led listed equities fund, TAHITO. On reflection, after hearing about Tem’s work, it feels so obvious that we should be drawing upon traditional wisdom to inform investment and financial flows, which is inherently about directing capital to where we attribute value. But having worked for some years in impact investing, I know it is a rare case to see people and organisations doing this meaningfully the way Tem and his team are.
I am delighted that in my role as Chief Impact Officer at Impact Investment Group – a leading Australian impact investing funds manager that seeks to use finance as a force for good – we will be deepening our relationship with Tem, as we work together with colleagues to invest for meaningful positive social and environmental outcomes in New Zealand. I was grateful to be invited to speak with him about rest and time for this issue of Dumbo Feather, and hear how his ancestral wisdom and values inform his work and the unique way he sees the world.
ERIN CASTELLAS: Let’s start with a bit about where you’re from and the work that you do.
It’s the acknowledgement that the environment comes first, people come second and you as the individual are the last and least important.
TEMUERA HALL: Ko Te Arawa te Waka, mai Maketu ki Tongarori. Tongariro te maunga, Ko Taupo-nui-a-Tia te moana. Ko Ngāti Tuwharetoa te Iwi, Ko Ngāti Rauhoto te hapu, Ko Nukuhau te marae. That’s how we introduce ourselves, whereby we acknowledge our mountains and tribal region first. If you are from a coastal tribe you’ll talk to your ocean, if you’re an inland tribe you’ll talk to your river or your lake, because the environment sustains us through past and future generations. But it’s deeper than that. It’s acknowledging that we are just a reflection of those that have gone before us. And in pre-European, traditional times, when you
