Kalyn Ponti

KP is a commercially driven leader who has scaled high-growth businesses in Canada and New Zealand. As a Director and member of the Senior Leadership Team at Aritzia, she helped guide the company’s $2B expansion in the years leading up to its TSX listing, while leading the Central Canada region through rapid growth. Now CEO of Humankind, she has guided its transformation into a high-performing consultancy while advising some of New Zealand’s most ambitious companies, including Sharesies, Projectworks, and Modica Group.

KP is known for helping leaders find the intersection between employee experience, client experience, and commercial performance — building organisations that achieve exceptional results without losing their humanity. Her approach is grounded in deep commercial experience and people-centred leadership, shaped by her time as a Director at one of Canada’s most admired companies, where she learned that enduring success comes from ambitious people united by shared standards and purpose.

Alongside leading Humankind, KP serves as an advisor and judge for the Best Places to Work Awards and contributes to leadership and governance forums shaping New Zealand’s business landscape. Her track record includes guiding high-growth companies such as Sharesies, Projectworks, and Modica Group, and advising CEOs and boards on building performance cultures that scale. Her greatest pride, however, lies in seeing people she’s led go on to achieve extraordinary things — both personally and professionally.

KP has knows the difference a truly united team can make - how clarity, ambition, and shared purpose can take a company from good to world-class. She’s drawn to ambitious organisations whose missions move the world forward. Above all, she believes in the power of purpose and achievement at work, and the day-to-day difference it makes to people’s lives.

KP embodies Humankind’s belief in “humanity at work” showing that organisations with strong cultures of excellence, clarity of leadership, and great people can achieve exceptional commercial results.