Resources for leaders and boards
Leading a cooperative is different
The decisions you make today shape the business for generations to come.
Leading any business brings challenges. But when your business is owned by its members, there's another dimension to every decision.
How do you balance commercial performance with member expectations? How do you plan for growth while protecting the principles that brought your members together? How do you attract the right directors, navigate succession, raise capital or adapt a governance structure that may have served your cooperative for decades?
These are questions faced by cooperative and mutual leaders across New Zealand, from some of our largest enterprises to smaller, independently owned businesses.
At Cooperative Business NZ, we're building practical tools, sharing knowledge and connecting people to help you navigate those decisions with confidence.
Because good cooperative governance requires more than good corporate governance.
[ cooperatives build a better world ]The right information makes for better decisions.
Practical tools designed for the realities of member-owned businesses.
Every cooperative is different, but many of the questions facing boards are surprisingly similar. We've developed tools that draw on real New Zealand cooperative information to help directors and executives explore options, compare approaches and have more informed conversations.
What are other cooperatives paying their directors?
Setting appropriate director remuneration can be challenging, particularly when boards include a mix of member-elected and independent directors, or when longstanding voluntary arrangements are being reconsidered.
Our Director Remuneration Tool brings together publicly available information from New Zealand cooperatives and mutuals to help boards explore how remuneration differs across organisations, board structures and roles.
It's a practical starting point for remuneration reviews, succession planning and discussions about attracting the skills and experience your board needs.
Governance education that understands cooperative ownership.
Good governance requires a combination of commercial judgement, technical knowledge, strong relationships and an understanding of the people your organisation exists to serve.
Through our partnership with Mayfield Group, we offer governance development opportunities designed specifically for cooperative and mutual organisations.
These programmes bring together practical boardroom skills with the distinctive responsibilities of member ownership, helping current and aspiring directors, chairs and senior executives build their confidence and capability.
From intensive workshops to longer development programmes, the focus is on learning that can be applied in your own boardroom.
What can we learn from other cooperative constitutions?
Your constitution is more than a legal document. It shapes how your cooperative is owned, governed and able to evolve.
Our Co-op Constitution Delver is an AI-powered research tool that lets you search and compare clauses from real New Zealand cooperative constitutions and selected Product Disclosure Statements.
Whether you're exploring director appointments, member voting rights, capital arrangements or constitutional change, the Delver helps you discover how other cooperatives have approached similar questions.
Rather than starting from scratch, start with the experience of others.
Learn from people who've been there.
There's a great deal to learn from the people leading cooperatives and mutuals, both here in New Zealand and around the world.
Our Co-op Leader Conversations podcast brings together chief executives, directors, researchers and industry practitioners to explore the challenges, opportunities and decisions that shape member-owned businesses.
From capital and succession to innovation, governance and member engagement, these conversations offer perspectives you won't always find in a textbook.
Listen to the experiences of others, challenge your own thinking and take fresh ideas back to your board or leadership team.
You don't have to lead alone.
One of the strengths of cooperation is learning from each other.
Across New Zealand, cooperative and mutual leaders are navigating many of the same challenges, often in very different industries.
Through Cooperative Business NZ, you can connect with peers, exchange ideas, share experiences and access specialist knowledge through our network of members and partners.
Our Co-op Connect service helps members find and connect with people across the cooperative community, opening doors to conversations that might otherwise never happen.
Because sometimes the most useful resource is another leader who's already tackled the question you're facing.
Board & Director Fees · NZD
What do boards really pay?
Average Chair and Director fees across five revenue bands. Choose a band to take a seat at its table.
Revenue band
The boardroom
Pick a revenue band above to seat the table.
Average annual fees
Average Chair uplift
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Select a band
Directors incl. Chair
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Select a band
Average board size
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Select a band
All figures are averages in NZD. n = the number of entities contributing to each figure.
Select a revenue band to read its notes.
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All director remuneration and fee information was collected from publicly available financial statements or annual reports posted either on the Companies Office or co-op and mutual websites.
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Financial statements and annual reports are published according to each entity’s financial year end date. The most recent data was for year ended 30 June 2026, the oldest was 31 March 2024.
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In total we found 45 cooperatives and mutuals that provided public financial statements and/or annual reports and included either total director fees, or separate Chair and director fees.
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The remuneration for each director, including the Chair for each entity was collected, alongside number of directors on each board and the revenue band. Some entities, in particular financial services, are only required to include a total figure for all director remuneration. Such entities were excluded from all calculations related to Chair fees and average director fees excluding Chair, but were included in average fees for all directors including the Chair. Cooperatives are not always required to disclose financial statements. Buying group or retail cooperatives often chose to keep commercially sensitive results confidential within their membership. This means the dataset includes few buying group or retail cooperatives.
Figures were rounded to the nearest thousand.
Where directors received less than 12 months of fees, for example if they had joined or left a board partway through a year, these figures were excluded from the calculations to ensure that only full year figures were included.
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Yes there are outliers, and these are described in the ‘About this data’ notes section in the tool. In particular, we found that some entities had independent directors paid markedly more than member directors. We found in such cases that the constitution expressly laid out this allowance to ensure paying market rates would attract the right skillsets to support the entity.
The Co-op Constitution Delver.
Search, compare and learn from real New Zealand cooperative constitutions.
The Co-op Constitution Delver is a secure, AI-powered tool for search across registered cooperative constitutions and Product Disclosure Statements (PDS) available through the Companies Office. If you prefer, you can request information by type of co-op such as:
Producer and grower co-ops
Consumer and retail co-ops
Buying groups and shared services
Sector-specific and service cooperatives
You can search for phrases, clauses and concepts and see how other cooperatives have actually approached them.
Ask natural language questions, adding as much context about your organisation as possible. Describe your organisation, your members and your markets. Ask about pros, cons, risks and mitigations.
Ask the kinds of questions boards, members and founders wrestle with, such as:
How do other co-ops structure director remuneration?
How are independent directors appointed and described?
How do constitutions handle capital, growth or succession?
What wording is used for member entry, exit or voting rights?
The Delver surfaces relevant examples, not abstract theory.
Watch the Delver in action.
ScenarioOur board of directors (chair, 2 independent directors and 3 member directors) are all volunteers and our current constitution doesn’t have any provision for board remuneration. As CEO of the cooperative I'd like to understand how other co-ops structure or describe board remuneration.
What are some options available for us? Do you have pros, cons, risks and mitigations for the different options?
Remember, the Delver offers guidance, not legal advice
The Co-op Constitution Delver is a research and learning tool. It supports informed discussions but does not replace professional legal advice.
Try the Delver
Ask natural language questions, adding as much context about your organisation as possible. Describe your organisation, your members and your markets. Ask about pros, cons, risks and mitigations.
“We're a business, but we're more than a business, too. We're an intergenerational trust.”
Dr Marc-André Pigeon, director Canadian centre for the study of cooperatives
Knowledge to help you look ahead
Research, insights and ideas for cooperative leaders.
The cooperative business model has a rich history, but its future is being shaped by changing markets, technology, regulation, member expectations and new approaches to ownership.
Our Knowledge Hub brings together research, reports, articles and practical insights from New Zealand and internationally to help leaders understand the issues, explore opportunities and make informed decisions. Read our latest Knowledge Hub resources.
Stronger leaders. Stronger cooperatives.
Build capability, share knowledge and shape what's next.
Whether you're a new director, an experienced chair, a chief executive or someone preparing for a future governance role, Cooperative Business NZ is here to help you make the most of the cooperative model.