Ray Finch
Chief Executive Officer, Laura Fergusson Trust Inc.
2025
Ray is the Chief Executive of Laura Fergusson Trust in Auckland, New Zealand, and is a fierce advocate for the rights of disabled people, with over a decade of senior disability sector experience since immigrating from South Africa.
Laura Fergusson Trust is one of the oldest disability focussed charities in NZ and was a formidable force behind deinstitutionalisation and providing community-based care almost sixty years ago, when all others defaulted to aged care options for people with physical disabilities.
In the PCVE landscape, Ray recently championed the awareness and safeguarding efforts in NZ, of disabled people against the risk of violent online grooming. This was achieved through Public Private Partnerships with New Zealand Security Intelligence Service, The Department of Internal Affairs and the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet of NZ.
Most recently, Ray was integral to a collaboration between NZ & Germany where New Zealand Health Group (NZH) combined forces with The Violence Prevention Network (VPN) in Germany. Together NZHG and VPN made significant inroads to build NZ’s capability to respond to PCVE needs as well as the creation of vital education resources for Teachers and social workers in NZ.
The catalytic power of this Summit in bringing together those who are devoting their lives to pushing back and working to confront, understand and work towards solutions around hate in our society is a noble and difficult task. The Summit not only energized those who attended but led to connecting the dots in a global network of those doing this work. The stories of the victims of hate were painful to witness but their courage in coming forward was inspirational. Those who attended left energized with the hope that by working together solutions can be forged.
