Tā mātou whānau
About us
We’re experts in mapping out and delivering tailored solutions to complex environmental challenges.
Drawing on decades of resource management and conservation expertise, we pair technical rigor with bold innovation. Together, we'll challenge outdated systems and old ways of thinking to craft solutions that create lasting environmental impact.
Want to work with us?
Who’s around our table?
Our multidisciplinary team will sit down with you to co-create a solution to the challenges you’re facing. Experience matters! That's why when we mahi tahi, work together, you'll work directly with our senior team.
Have a kaupapa you want to collaborate on? Pull up a chair and let’s get to work.
Our Team
Alastair Jewell is your technical planning whizz, skilled in seeing both the big picture, and understanding the detail of what needs to happen, when it needs to happen, and exactly how – crucial elements in seeing your project through to completion.
ALASTAIR JEWELL
PRINCIPAL PLANNER
Dr Belinda McFadgen brings her deep curiosity and analytical rigour to any ‘project curveballs’ you send her way. A research ninja, she wields the wider context and brings a nuanced understanding of the issues to any task. Her expertise in nature-based solutions and climate adaptation means she is focussed on delivering outcomes that meet the needs of the natural world and our obligations to it.
DR BELINDA MCFAGDEN
SENIOR ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY CONSULTANT
Dr Elizabeth Parlato, with her expertise in ecological modelling and hands-on, get-your-boots-muddy conservation, is our lead ecological investigator, applying her sharp, analytical mind and eye for scientific accuracy to your issue. Equally fluent in front of the computer, in the bush, or at home on the farm, this shapes the unique perspective she brings to conservation problems.
DR ELIZABETH PARLATO
SENIOR ECOLOGIST
Dr Fleur Maseyk is our translator, bridging the gap between science and its application to the sort of real-world, conservation decision-making problems you’re grappling with. She’s an ecosystem services expert, a creative problem-solver, and that rare breed who loves to see courageous ideas bloom and complex projects through to completion. Fleur is also in charge of herding the ‘Cats’ and keeping projects humming along.
DR FLEUR MASEYK
GENERAL MANAGER & CONSERVATION SCIENTIST
Greg Carlyon, company founder and chief facilitator, will be the one deftly weaving your team together around the table and guiding the solution-seeking process in a style all his own. An experienced RMA hearing commissioner, with mediation and arbitration skills honed from years spent around Council tables and in environment court hearings, your project will be guided by battle-honed hands.
GREG CARLYON
FOUNDER & DIRECTOR
MAREE GURNEY
BUSINESS SUPPORT
Maree Gurney provides invaluable behind-the-scenes support for our team and is a gentle hand on the wheel of company strategy. A wrangler of animals, people and Greg, Maree is also the green-thumb extraordinaire behind the flourishing office pot plant collection.
Mike Scott as our OG principal planner has a laser-sharp eye for planning requirements. He will be landing the big ideas within the policy frameworks you have to work within - all driven by his focus on outcomes that do the best by people and the environment.
MIKE SCOTT
PRINCIPAL PLANNER (OG)
Pia Bennett will apply the Te Ao Māori lens across your project. Pia is of the Tauranga Moana, and as our kaupapa taiao navigator, policy lead and head Aunty, she calls it like it is – just like on the marae! She is a powerhouse of knowledge and works tirelessly to ensure hapū rights and interests are embedded in decision-making in way that is tika.
PIA BENNETT
KAIURUNGA KAUPAPA TAIAO
Tania Putu as head-office manager has magical abilities when it comes to a) organising Greg’s diary and b) her no-nonsense approach to deadlines and delivery, allowing us all just to get on with the mahi. She’s our friendly ‘front of house’ face and your first port of call for project admin support.
TANIA PUTU
OFFICE MANAGER
Te Ratuhi Clements is an absolute force of nature in her role as Kaiurunga Project Navigator for the Ko Wai Mātou project, pouring her endless energy and passion for the kaupapa into her support of the project and the team.
TE RATUHI CLEMENTS
KAIURUNGA
Bettina Anderson, a long-time friend of The Catalyst Group and Chief Swamp Hen at Pūkeko Blue is our word-weaver and content creator. She brings a splash of colour to our mahi with her creative prowess, fun, and magical ability to inject clarity to the chaos and wisdom to the wacky. Bettina is the curator behind our socials, and the inspired imaginative force on our ‘special’ projects.
BETTINA ANDERSON
COMMS & CONTENT ADVISOR
We build genuine relationships and work alongside clients and communities at every stage to create solutions that matter
How do our values come to life?
Organisations, iwi and hapū we have worked alongside
Our Story
Founder Greg Carlyon, partner Maree Gurney, plus a fellow refugee from the local government sector, formed The Catalyst Group back in 2011 and were immediately joined by Fleur Maseyk. The company was built from the ground up, with these ‘OGs’ determined to do things differently from the consultancies they were used to working with in their previous roles.
We knew that clients in the environmental sector need access to expertise, support and capability-building in different ways; and that it takes a bunch of amazing, courageous people to deliver that.
Attracting bold, pragmatic, deep thinkers who are also great humans into their team, continues to be what sets the company apart today. All ‘Catalysers’ are senior practitioners in their field, relish a hands-on approach to their work, are genuinely committed to outcomes that serve our taiao and uphold Te Tiriti, and are frequent users/visitors to the wild places of Aotearoa.
The team has demonstrated a flair for working at the ‘gritty end’ of business, providing support to large-scale infrastructure projects, identifying and delivering strategic planning needs, and supporting highly motivated community groups, iwi and hapū to have their values and outcomes recognised in resource management decisions.
As champions of the underdog and with a drive to reset injustices, since the beginning TCG has garnered a reputation for throwing itself at thorny issues. In recent years TCG has increasingly focused on kaupapa taiao, bringing our mix of expertise to work alongside iwi and hapū in their resource management struggles.
As a company we have gone from strength to strength and we’re looking a little slicker than we were in 2011, but at our core our ethos remains the same. Our unwavering goal is to deliver innovative, tailored solutions to the complex environmental challenges we face as a country - for we know that a thriving environment means a thriving Aotearoa.
Greg & Al installing the first office whiteboard (2012)
A bit of a staff Christmas 'do' at the Rangitīkei River office campsite (2012)
"I can see clearly now..."
Water 'sampling' in the Manawatū River (2014)
Boardroom table arriving into TCG World HQ (2013)
Early promotional imagery (meeting time!) (2013)
Greg in the Rangitīkei District (2019)
Hoardings (2013 edition)
Our Logo
Titiro whakamuri, kōkiri whakamua
We look back and reflect so that we can move forward
In 2025, The Catalyst Group underwent its own transformation, an evolution of sorts. We took a good look at ourselves and our company whakapapa and reflected on our growth over the last decade. We rewrote our story and rewove elements of our very first logo (derived from the idea of a reactive catalyst causing change) into a new, fresh look.
Our logo now reflects the collaborative process we aim for when threading together different people, multi-disciplinary skill sets, and disparate groups around a table in search of a common solution. A representation of how shared intentions and shared ideas can be knitted together and steer us in the direction we all want to go – towards a thriving people living in a thriving environment.
Mauri ora!
Credits | our company glow-up made possible with the help of:
Branding and Design: five and dime
Photography: David Lupton
Words: Pūkekoblue Science Communication