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Tempo Dance Festival and the New Zealand Dance Festival Trust warmly welcome new team members Kirsty Brownfield and Rachael Penman.  

Kirsty Brownfield joins the Tempo team this year in the role of Finance and Admin Manager. She brings a passion for the arts from an early education and career in fine arts, photography and architecture. After graduating from the University of Auckland with a Bachelors Degree in Architecture, Kirsty spent 3 years in sales, marketing and operational roles for an international photography company that enabled her to travel extensively and work overseas, ultimately spending 10 years in America.

The majority of her time in America was spent working for two high-end specialist architectural practices delivering federal, military, medical, commercial, and retail projects ranging from $1M - $15M. Her responsibilities included design, construction documentation, and project management.

Returning to New Zealand in 2006, Kirsty has spent the last 10 years as the General Manager of a specialist IT Talent Search and Recruitment Agency.  She led the development of the company’s vision, mission and values, defining strategy, structure and long-term planning. Under Kirsty’s financial and operational oversight, the company achieved improved individual sales and business performance, with revenue growth of 400% in the past 4 years. She was instrumental also in the creation and development of the company’s brand identity, digital and social media marketing strategy, and EVP, most recently being recognized at the SARA awards winning the Most Innovative Agency of The Year 2016.

Trained as a dancer and also as a director in film and television, Rachael Penman has been a producer of theatre and dance for 25 years.  Over the years she has worked with many of NZ's dance royalty including Mary Jane O'Reilly, Douglas Wright, Shona McCullagh and Neil Ieremia, and for the last 6 years has been General Manager and Producer for Okareka Dance Company.

Rachel spent 5 years in London as a producer for West End Musical Theatre with Ben Kenwright and programmed her own theatre in the West End.  She also advised for theatre companies around Europe and has a wealth of international touring and business experience to draw on.  Recently Rachael has re-discovered her passion for ballet having returned to the classroom as an adult student.  She may not be able to leap high or triple pirouette across the floor anymore, but who cares when a love of dance is for life!