Suzanne Jones is a New Zealander with a background in information and communication, including a number of years working as a librarian, and has worked in the public and private sector in New Zealand, the United Kingdom and Australia. She has considerable experience in utilising communication technologies to maximise the value of information services. She has initiated and managed successful award-winning websites and been involved in an international collaboration focusing on knowledge sharing.

One of the website projects she initiated was the result of a collaboration focusing on supporting young people to make healthy decisions about their lives. The project involved young people in all aspects of the design and decision making and won the Technology Users Association New Zealand award in its category. Suzanne says “One of the greatest challenges was to encourage a range of partners to work together to achieve the vision for the website, from government and NGO’s through to private sponsors”.

Suzanne has also spoken at a number of conferences on a range of subjects related to information and comunication including in New Zealand, Alaska and Wales.

She lives in Wellington, New Zealand’s capital city, in a 100 year old wooden cottage with a lovely garden, 20 minutes from the CBD and five minutes drive from the beautiful south coast. She is married to an Englishman and they have a young daughter and another child on the way. Suzanne says “Balance is critical, to me that is balancing my family life with my need to achieve professionally”.

Suzanne currently sits on the UNESCO Sub-committee for Communication in New Zealand and is a member of the Association of Independent Information Professionals. She is also a Director of IQPro Ltd (www.iqpro.co.nz), a company that specializes in providing information research and analysis to clients to support business decision-making. “Making the move to forming a company with a colleague enabled us to develop our own set of business ethics, including being family friendly and supporting and mentoring others.”
suzanne@iqpro.co.nz