Who we are

The principals of Jackson Strategy are Anne and Colin Jackson. Anne has an education background and Colin has a technology background. Increasingly we find our areas of work overlapping. Both are about dealing with the future and making a difference in people’s lives.

Anne Jackson

Anne Jackson. Photo by Mark Tantrum | www.marktantrum.com

Anne’s work focuses on the links between education, employment, economic and social development. She helps organisations understand the impact of global and technological change on education systems. She has expertise in online learning and in the use of data to inform strategies and investment priorities.

Anne has a degree in History from Cambridge University and has worked as a professional public servant in the UK and New Zealand. Until 2013, Anne was a Deputy Secretary in the Ministry of Education.

Anne has experience in central agencies, including the State Services Commission and the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, where she spent a five year period in the 1990s as the Prime Minister’s education adviser.

She was the General Manager of the Centre of Social Research and Evaluation in the Ministry of Social Development before joining the Ministry of Education in 2006, where she held Deputy Secretary positions for seven years – in Schooling, Tertiary and International education.

Anne has experience in working with Ministers from all sides of the political spectrum, and has extensive contacts in the education and government sectors. She has participated in the Australia and New Zealand School of Government Executive Fellows’ programme and the Global Education Leadership Programme – an international forum for system leaders in education focusing on 21st century learning and digital literacy.

You can find out more about Anne on her LinkedIn profile.

Colin Jackson

Colin Jackson. Photo by Mark Tantrum | www.marktantrum.com

Colin graduated from Cambridge University in 1982 with a degree in mathematics and has spent over 30 years as an IT professional in the private, public and not-for-profit sectors. He has always focused on using technology to solve real problems and to do interesting new things.

Colin started his career as a programmer in London before joining the National Bank in New Zealand in the late 1980s, where he held a variety of IT and business analysis positions.

Following a career change in the mid 1990s he worked for Government departments including the State Services Commission and the Ministry of Economic Development, advising on technology’s potential to transform Government services and New Zealand society. Colin has been intimately involved in a range of strategy and policy initiatives in New Zealand on subjects including cyber-security, privacy, trust and intellectual property, and was a pioneer of E-Government in New Zealand.

As one of the first Internet users in New Zealand — and Government’s first Internet policy advisor – Colin has significant domain knowledge. Since the mid 2000s he has worked as an IT consultant in New Zealand and the Pacific, where he has acted as a trusted adviser to many clients managing large scale IT projects and helped numerous executives to take advantage of IT and Internet-related opportunities to best deliver their business functions.

Colin has particular expertise in understanding technology’s potential to transform businesses and explaining technology ideas and opportunities to non-technical audiences. He has worked as a technology commentator on Radio New Zealand National, and is a founder and past president of InternetNZ — a major not-for-profit that runs part of the Internet in New Zealand.

You can find out more about Colin on his LinkedIn profile. You can read his IT and internet-related writing on his now-mothballed blog, it.gen.nz.