Evie O’Brien

2018 Cohort

Leading the Atlantic Institute to support Atlantic Fellows across the world to accelerate the eradication of inequities for fairer, healthier and more inclusive societies.

Evie is Executive Director at the Atlantic Institute, based in Oxford, Britain where she leads a team and organisation with global reach. She is Ngāti Awa, Ngāti Ranginui and Ngati Pikiao descent, and built a career working in executive leadership in higher education. She says her focus at the Institute is on accelerating the eradication of global inequities through bringing together extraordinary leaders who are unlike-minded but like-hearted in their pursuit of equity. Her particular focus in previous executive roles has been on organisational change, culture, community engagement and leadership.

She left Aotearoa in 2018 - where she was then the Deputy CEO of Te Whare Wananga o Awanuiarangi - to be the inaugural Program Director at the Atlantic Institute based at Rhodes Trust, Oxford, UK. She was appointed acting Executive Director of the Institute in 2020 and in 2021, she was appointed to the permanent role. Evie is passionate about people, place and the agency humanity has to not only dismantle unjust systems and structures but more importantly the ability to create (k)new solutions.

Social change work

Evie’s social change project was a literature review on Indigenous approaches to leadership, which she is now planning on weaving into a PhD.