Annah Stretton

Annah's CV

Founder and CEO of the Stretton Group in 1992, Annah is highly regarded as a successful entrepreneur, leader, social change activist, author, and public speaker. A talented and enduring fashion designer and retailer, Annah’s clothing label has been loved by a diversity of women for over 30 years.

She is the recipient of many awards, including a New Zealand Order of Merit for services to Business, Fashion, and Community, the Verve Cliquot Business Woman of the Year, the EY 2015 Social Entrepreneur of the Year, and she was a finalist in New Zealander of the Year in 2018 and 2019.

Annah’s most significant and enduring legacy is the social change that she is achieving through RAW (Reclaim Another Woman), a charitable organization that has had a significant impact on a large number of New Zealand’s most complex incarcerated women and their families. Within RAW, she operates both inside and outside the women’s prison. Her lived experience has been further amplified through her recent Waikato University master's academia (social policy and Māori and Indigenous studies), with which she aims to privilege the voice of the incarcerated women in the New Zealand Government's social change conversation.

New Zealander of the Year

2018

Finalist for the Kiwibank 2018 New Zealander of the Year Award.

2019

Finalist for the Kiwibank 2019 New Zealander of the Year Award.

Testimonials

British High Commissioner to NZ

Vicki Treadell

“I have got to know Annah Stretton over the last five years. I have observed a woman of commitment and passion. Beyond her business success domestically and as a Kiwi exporter, playing her part in New Zealand’s economic success, I have also witnessed a woman who gives back, or, in the jargon “ pays it forward”. Her social conscience is one of the things I admire most about her. She is a champion of women and women’s causes.”

Prime Minister of New Zealand from 1999-2008

Helen Clark

“Decisive, direct, inclusive … inspiring those around her to be challenged, confident and independent. Congratulations, Annah, on the recognition of your contribution to so many aspects of New Zealand life.”