David Searle Elected President & Chair of Tennis New Zealand

At a recent Board meeting, David Searle was elected President and Chair of Tennis New Zealand.

Searle is currently Chair of Baker Tilly Staples Rodway New Zealand and Managing Director – Auckland. He is an experienced audit and assurance professional with a career spanning more than 30 years.

He is also a Trustee of the New Zealand Children’s Transplant Support Trust and a past President of the Australasian CA Training Group (ACATG), a not-for-profit co-operative of accounting practices across Australia and New Zealand.

Searle takes over from Terri-Ann Scorer, who the Board thank for her service as Chair over the past six years. Terri-Ann has been a passionate advocate for the sport, providing thoughtful and thorough leadership through major challenges such as the Covid-19 pandemic and the modernising tennis change programme. The Board commended her for her contribution and wish her all the best in her future endeavours.

Tennis New Zealand has also welcomed two new Board members: Joseph Royal (Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei) and Angela Nash.

Joseph Royal has been appointed as the Māori Board Member for Tennis New Zealand. He leads Stakeholder and Partnerships for Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei and has worked with Tennis Auckland and Tennis New Zealand on major cultural components of events such as the ASB Classic and the Davis Cup pōwhiri.

A former Māori All Black, Joseph brings strong high-performance and governance experience through roles with the New Zealand Olympic Committee, the Sport Integrity Commission, and a commercial kiwifruit board. He is also involved with Ōrākei Tennis Club and is passionate about how Te Ao Māori can help shape the future of tennis in Aotearoa.

Angela (Ange) Nash joins the Board with extensive executive and governance experience in leading large-scale digital and organisational transformation. She is currently the CIO at AA Insurance, where she is delivering a major multi-country transformation programme that recently won the 2025 CIO Summit’s Business Transformation through Digital & IT award.

Previously, Ange was CIO at NZ Rugby, earning the 2023 CIO of the Year for her work across fan engagement, technology, and system-wide change. She also serves on the Boards of Quotable Value and NZ Tech Leaders, has governance experience in disability sport, and has studied Te Reo Māori and Tikanga Māori. She brings a strong passion for sport to the role.

Tennis New Zealand also acknowledges the departure of Chris Hall, who has made a tremendous contribution to the development of the new constitutional framework for tennis and the governance transition into the new structure.

We thank and commend Chris for the broad governance expertise he brought to the Board’s work.


Angela Nash


Joseph Royal