Tania Domett is a trailblazer when it comes tackling complex equity issues across a range of diversity dimensions.
Winner of the 2024 Diversity Champion Award, Tania is a researcher, strategy consultant, and entrepreneur dedicated to using her skills and influence to drive positive social change for diverse voices and underserved groups in Aotearoa.
Through her work at Cogo, the agency she founded in 2014, and Project Gender, she takes on projects and campaigns to advance equity, with a special focus on gender, disability, and young people.
As co-director of Project Gender, in 2023 Tania led the research behind the Mako Mama Mangopare – Single Parents Research Project, which gathered data from over 3,500 single parents and provided more than 80 recommendations to fundamentally shift how government, employers, and society think about, and engage with, single parents. The large survey sample enabled her to deliver segmented results for disabled single parents, and parents of disabled children, as well as results for wāhine Māori and Pasifika women.
Tania has been working with industry associations and government agencies, including the Construction Sector Accord, Hanga-Aro-Rau Advanced Manufacturing, Engineering and Logistics Workforce Development Council, and the Institute of Finance Professionals New Zealand (INFINZ), to support diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) workplace and employment strategies.
Other recent work includes the Trade Careers project, which revealed the barriers New Zealand women face when entering the building, construction and infrastructure industries. Tania has also partnered with Be. Accessible (now Be. Lab) to focus on improving access to employment and equity in the workplace for disabled New Zealanders through the Access Survey Research Programme.
A history of pro bono work as a co-founder of family violence charitable trust The Backbone Collective and the Gender Justice Collective (GJC) typifies Tania’s commitment to social change.
“Tania cares deeply that the work she delivers has impact and brings about change. To this end, she uses every platform and opportunity available to her to advocate, influence and make things happen," says Diversity Works New Zealand Chief Executive Maretha Smit.
“She is a thought-leader in DEI and is committed to creating space for voices who might not otherwise be heard, and to ensuring meaningful change towards a more equitable Aotearoa is instigated as a result.”
