Maxine Gay is the General Manager of Pillars Ka Pou Whakahou, a charitable organisation that aims to help create positive futures for the children of people in prison in Aotearoa/New Zealand. Prior to joining Pillars in 2018, she worked in unions for 35 years, holding a variety of leadership roles. Her last role was Retail, Finance & Commerce Secretary for FIRST Union. Maxine has represented New Zealand unions at the ILO and was president of the Asia Pacific Women’s Committee for UNI, a global union federation for the skills and service sectors.

Maxine was a member of the Services WDC interim Establishment Board and the WDC Design Reference Group. She is a former director of ServiceIQ, the Industry Training Organisation for the Services sector, and was previously a director for Retail Institute, the Industry Training Organisation for Retail.