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Kaiwhakahaere Matua | Managing Director | Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Pakahi
Born in the small township of Kawakawa in the far northern region of Aotearoa | New Zealand, Steven Renata grew up in Milton, in the country’s deep south, and takes pride in his dual heritage of Māori and Pākeha (Scottish and Irish). One of the first Māori graduates of the University of Otago, Steven received his master’s degree in marketing in 1994, followed by a career in Māori tourism at AUT, which led to him becoming a founder of global fitness company Les Mills International.
Steven is the Kaiwhakahaere Matua | Managing Director and co-owner at KIWA Digital, a world-leading Māori-led creative cultural agency that uses technology to enable the world's voices to be heard authentically. The agency’s pioneering software, VoiceQ, has been responsible for dubbing hits like Squid Game, Disney’s Moana and the Lion King reo Māori. VoiceQ’s sister software QutPro has been responsible for uplifting cultural capability across much of the New Zealand’s public and private sector.
Steven is dedicated to the company’s strategic direction and success, observing and influencing its work through the lens of tribal leadership. This approach focuses on language and relationships that drive performance in a sustainable way, operating at the leading edge of quality content delivery. In an industry facing massive disruption driven by the global shift to digital consumption and the introduction of new technologies, Steven has helped lead Kiwa’s business model away from the constraints of physical distribution and to sharpen its focus on the creative cultural services and post-production industries.
In 2021 he was voted one of the top 10 most influential people in global localisation sector by the Entertainment Globalization Association. In 2022 KIWA was awarded the prestigious He Kai Kei Aku Ringa for Māori Excellence in Export and Steven was awarded the Minster of Defence Award of Excellence Special Award Kotahitanga (Unity). In 2023 he was awarded the Matahiko Totara Award for service to New Zealand’s public sector over the last 10 years.
Steven and his whānau (family) live in Auckland, New Zealand, where he enjoys cycling, music, food, viticulture and travel.
