ABOUT WE
Teremoana Rapley MNZM
Matri-architect
"I see broken systems everywhere, and for me to understand things better, I need to understand that system and how it’s come about. Its history is important. Whakapapa always is."
Current
Trustee, National Pacific Media Trust
2025
Mātairangi Pacific Toi Residency, Pukeahu. Massey University College of Creative Arts
2024
Lifetime Achievement Award, Pacific Music Awards Trust
Independent Spirit Award, Taite Music Awards
2021
Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit Queens Birthday
2019
Indigenous Writers Residency, Banff Arts Centre, Treaty 7 Territory, Canada.
2019
Taite Music Prize (Moana and the Moahunters)
2018
Inductee, Aotearoa Music Hall of Fame (Upper Hutt Posse)
2017-2018
Board Member, Independent Music New Zealand
2016
Taite Music Prize (Upper Hutt Posse)
2013-2015
Board Member, Women in Film and Television NZ
2013-2015
Minister, Universal Zulu Nation Tāmaki Makaurau Chapter
2014
Tangireka Awards, Cook Islands. (For 20+years of service)
A neurodivergent award-winning beat-making rapper Teremoana has spent over 25 years in senior leadership roles in television, music, and events.
She has worked in 15 countries with her family-owned social cohesion event production company. Managed multi-million dollar television production budgets and teams of up to 120 people. She has also served community, corporates, local and central government agencies.
In 2017 she began working at Auckland Councils’, The Southern Initiative unit co-leading the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, and Ministry for Pacific Peoples collaborative human-centred Pacific Peoples Workforce Challenge.
She joined the Creative Industries team at Tātaki Auckland Unlimited from 2020-2023 as a Strategist lead for the region’s 10-year work-plan, Create Auckland 2030 launched in May 2022.
In 2021, she was appointed as a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for 25 years of service to music and television. In 2024 she was awarded The Taite Independent Spirit Award, and the Pacific Music Awards Lifetime Achievement Award.
She currently sits on the Minister-appointed board of the National Pacific Media Trust, and supports Māori and Pasifika Tech Careers Activation Trust, Haututū.
Teremoana is a Black Moana Sovereign Storyteller and the Matri-architect of The Hefty Agency.
Her skillset, behaviour and value system is founded on collective wellbeing. She understands the world through the interconnectivity of people, place and planet.
The Hefty Agency hold space and support organisations, collectives, and corporates with:
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integrating collective wellbeing behaviour
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monitoring and measuring of shifts
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fit-for-purpose operations
What is indigenous intelligence?
To bring your whole self to the table is a phrase that can be used flippantly or with purpose, of course we choose the latter.
From this purview, by looking from multiple perspectives, we approach challenges acknowledging that everything is interconnected.
Remember; we all live within a system.