Ali Ballantine

Ali Ballantine has proudly served as Chair of the Cromwell & Districts Community Trust for over five years, helping guide the Trust through a period of significant growth, new partnerships, and increasing community need. She brings to this role a depth of governance experience that few can match, paired with a collaborative, inclusive style that ensures every voice around the table is heard.

Ali spent 15 years as an Environment Southland councillor - six of those as Chair - where she led regional planning, environmental management, and complex multi-stakeholder projects. She is also a highly experienced Resource Consent Commissioner with more than 15 years’ involvement in hearings, regional planning processes, and decision-making at the intersection of community needs and environmental responsibility.

One of Ali’s proudest achievements is her long-standing leadership of the Mid Dome Wilding Trees Charitable Trust. As Chair, she helped steer one of New Zealand’s most complex multi-agency biosecurity programmes, working across pastoral land, DOC estates, and LINZ holdings to address Southland’s most significant wilding pine threat. This work is widely regarded as a conservation success story and one of her personal career highlights.

Ali’s commitment to protecting Aotearoa’s unique environments continues in her appointment as a Fiordland Marine Guardian, a role she describes as both humbling and exciting.

Before stepping into regional leadership roles, Ali was deeply involved in community organisations - including Plunket, Playcentre, and School Boards of Trustees in both Southland and Canterbury. Those early experiences shaped her belief in grassroots connection, family-centred wellbeing, and decisions built on shared perspectives.

Across every role, Ali is known for her strategic thinking, steady leadership, and ability to bring people together to solve complex challenges. She is committed to ensuring organisational risks are well managed, opportunities are maximised, and community outcomes remain at the heart of every decision.

Her leadership continues to strengthen the Trust’s vision for a connected, resilient, future-focused Cromwell - where people and place are equally valued.