Linda Jenkinson
“Coming from a Hiwinui farm in Manawatū, I learned as an apprentice to my father, in his many ventures, how to build a business. I went on to Massey University and studied computer science to learn how to scale, and accounting and finance to learn the numbers. Then I took that to the world!”
Linda Jenkinson is one of New Zealand’s most successful businesswomen – a global entrepreneur – she has founded numerous businesses. Linda was the first New Zealand woman to list a company on the NASDAQ stock exchange, with DMSC, the $250 million on-demand courier company she co-founded. She also co-founded a global customer and employee experience platform (John Paul Inc) which was sold in 2016. Linda has built more than $700 million of value and created 8,000 jobs in global, technology enabled startups.
Always a contributor to making the world a better place, Linda co-founded WOW for Africa, a social enterprise supporting women entrepreneurs in Senegal. She is currently the Chair of Unicef New Zealand, leading the organisation to support the transformation of the Pacific to reach sustainable development goals through private-public partnerships and innovation.
Awards and accolades for Linda include Master Entrepreneur of the Year by Ernst and Young, a Kea World Class New Zealand Award and being on the list of the 100 most influential women in the Bay Area by the San Francisco Business Times. She is the first woman to win the Sir Geoffrey Peren Award for Most Distinguished Alumni from Massey University.
Linda currently serves on several boards, including Air New Zealand (NZE), Eclipx Group (ECX), the Guild Group and Harbour Asset Management and is a business council member for the New Zealand Olympic Committee.
Building on her degrees from Massey University, Linda also has a Master of Business Administration in Finance from The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania
Linda has mentored New Zealand companies from her San Franscisco base since 2000 and, having lived in the US for many years, she moved back to Wellington in 2017. She now actively mentors many scale-ups and startups in both the profit and non-profit space, supporting them in their growth journey.
