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Port Industry Association
Conferences

PIA conference 2026: Save the date & slight format change

The PIA Conference 2026 is proudly being hosted by Lyttelton Port Company and will be based at Rydges Christchurch.

Format Change: We listened to the feedback about last year's conference in which people felt there was too much information crammed into the main presentation day of our conference.

So the main body of Conference 2026 Company will commence on Tuesday September 29 at 1400 (after 1330 registrations) and continue throughout the day of Wednesday September 30, culminating with the Conference dinner on the evening of Wednesday 30th.

This dinner will be held at Christchurch's very new and impressive central city venue, officially named the One New Zealand Stadium, due to open in late April. The fully roofed venue is a new landmark for Christchurch, the Canterbury earthquakes of February 2011 having irreparably damaged Lancaster Park, which has since been demolished.

PIA Subcommittee meetings will be held on Thursday October 1.

We'll share more details about Conference 2026 as they are locked in.

The Port Industry Association’s 2025 Conference

Our well-attended 2025 PIA Conference on Sept 16-18 was held at Rydges Wellington and proudly hosted by CentrePort Wellington. Speakers included Associate Transport Minister James Meager, KiwiRail Executive GM Sales & Commercial Alan Piper, economist Cameron Bagrie and a panel of our members’ GMs Commercial, with journalist Paddy Gower speaking at the conference dinner. For the first time attendees included port industry representatives from Fiji, Niue, Tonga, Papua New Guinea and the Cook Islands.

2025 Conference Sponsors

2025 Grant Wilson Memorial Award Announced

The 2025 Grant Wilson Memorial Award was awarded to Ruth Parris, which was announced during the conference dinner. More information here

2024 winner – Troy Evans (posthumously)
2023 winner - Adam Harvey

Photos from the 2025 Conference

The panel of GMs Commercial assembled from our members, discussing our industry's future. Left to right: Blair Hamill, Justin Williams, Simon Munt, Andrew Locke and Justin Scholes.

Grant Wilson Memorial Award winner Ruth Parris with her trophy, with PIA EO Jacqui Ramsay (left) and outgoing chair Pat Kirk (right).

Outgoing Chair Pat Kirk opening our 2026 conference.

A significant cohort from the Pacific Islands attended.

Associate Transport Minister James Meagher addresses the group.

Outgoing PIA Chair Pat Kirk (left), new PIA Chair Dave Wakelin (right) and PIA EO Jacqui Ramsay (middle).

CentrePort’s Trevor Melind

Conference 2026 attendees.

Sponsor James Bowman, Co-founder & CEO of Bothworlds speaking about Rasp Software.

Tracey Bates and Scott Bernie of Maritime New Zealand.

Jonny Cook of Maritime New Zealand

Port of Tauranga’s GM Commercial, Blair Hamill.

Award winner Ruth Parris after outgoing PIA Chair Pat Kirk announced her win.

Conference Dinner speaker journalist Paddy Gower

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