Category winners

Business: Mark Dunajtschik

Arts: Hone Kouka, artistic director of the Kia Mau Festival of Māori, Pasifika, International Indigenous Dance and Theatre. He is also a celebrated playwright and actor, short fiction writer, poet and children’s author.

Community service: Mike O’Sullivan, property investor and a long-time volunteer at Mary Potter Hospice. He provided several million dollars in seed funding for the Mary Potter Hospice apartments.

Education: Alison Eldredge, founder of Arohanui Strings, an organisation that gives free instruments and music lessons to children in the poorer suburbs of the Hutt Valley.

Environment: Rob Wilson and Serena Cox, founders of Ghost-fishing NZ, a group of divers who pull truckloads of rubbish out of Wellington Harbour and beyond.

Government: Annette King, who represented the eastern and southern suburbs of Wellington for 21 years as an MP before retiring earlier this year. Most recently she was a mentor to Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern.

Science and technology: Linc Gasking, startup entrepreneur and co-founder of virtual reality software company 8i, which develops software for virtual reality headsets.

Sports: Josh Junior, sailor, who represented New Zealand at the Rio Olympics in 2016 and was part of the victorious America’s Cup crew in Bermuda.

Youth: Tabby Besley, founder of InsideOUT, an organisation ‘‘for youth, by youth’’ that works to make Aotearoa a safer place for young people of minority genders and sexualities.

World-Class Welly: Tim Brown, former All Whites skipper and founder of Allbirds footwear.

Philanthropy Showcase Recipients: Margaret Doucas, Barbara Blake, Ben Kieboom.