Who got that job?

Were you one of the people who applied for this job and wondered who got it?

Job title: Executive director.

For: Women's Golf New Zealand.


Entirely appropriate, really: when the Herald tracks down Anne Fitzpatrick, she's on the golf course, improving a game she has loved for years but has only lately started playing.

But Dunedin-raised Fitzpatrick brings wide and diverse experience to her new job. She started her career in retail management, and since then has worked for the State Services Commission, Nelson Polytechnic, has been general manager of the New Zealand Institute of Management, and was most recently at recruitment and search company Sheffield as a consultant.

She also brings to her new post, based in Wellington, a determination to break down barriers. She says: "I'm passionate about access and opportunity."

Fitzpatrick will be working to redress the imbalance that sees men's golf accorded more importance than women's in media and sponsorship terms.

Women's netball and tennis have succeeded by going upmarket, she says, and the new, nine-hole golf now offered by many clubs is attractive to working and younger women.

Part of this passion comes from her own experience - Fitzpatrick walks with a limp, the legacy of childhood polio. But her parents encouraged to achieve when she was young, she says.

"My philosophy is that people - and this is what my parents did for me - have the opportunities to do the things they want to and be able to excel."