North Shore Budget Service - Takapuna

Drew Glucina - General Manager, NSBS

Drew has more than 35 years of professional experience in executive leadership roles across the private, public and social sectors. She has founded and operated her own strategy consulting companies and managed New Zealand’s leading third sector organisations, with deep functional and industry expertise in driving growth, revenue, innovation and scale.

She has worked with the World Bank, NGOs, international financial institutions, local and global non-profit organisations, government ministries and multinational organisations to bring about change in policy, practice and funding.

Drew developed a cutting-edge health smartphone App with a world-leading Danish technology company to detect, diagnose and prevent the onset of melanoma cancer. She worked with the World Bank on funding educational programmes for youth in developing Pacific nations. She was involved with the formation of government-funded initiatives to target mental health and wellbeing across New Zealand, produced financial literacy training programmes to empower minority and indigenous groups, and created entrepreneurial training services to help underprivileged women establish small businesses and improve their family’s livelihoods.

She is bilingual, and passionate about improving the lives of communities by finding economic, health and cultural solutions.

Abid Al-Atafi – Senior Financial Mentor

Abid started working for the North Shore Budget Service Inc. in 1996 (24 years). He calculates he has had close to 7,000 sessions with clients over the years

Abid is a professional certified Financial Mentor. Utilizing whanau centric and strength-based approaches. He assists clients to identify their financial goals and develop financial plan of action. His practice focuses on ensuring immediate positive results debt reduction. Currently he is running many financial mentoring clinics at different locations in Auckland.

He is a recognized national facilitator/trainer and has supervised many face to face and distance learning financial mentoring courses in New Zealand through Fin Cap. He also provides professional development for other financial mentors in New Zealand and community education seminars for some NGO or businesses in the field of financial mentoring/budgeting.

Abid has a PhD in Microbial Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from the United Kingdom. He has had over twenty years ‘experience in three overseas universities, and three years’ experience in a New Zealand university in a Research Fellowship role. He is a student counsellor for Languages International. Abid has published over thirty papers in different international journals and written five books in Arabic for university students.

Sue Deason – Financial Mentor

Sue Deason is a qualified Budget Advisor under the Federation of Family Budgeting Services, and has been qualified since 1997. She has worked in the Intensive Support Service of NSBS for 22 years.

Sue has a Bachelor of Arts in English from Auckland University, and a Post- graduate Diploma of the New Zealand Library School (gained in 1974). She has developed and improved all systems and processes currently used to maintain client plans and services. She has assisted with development of the customised applications of Excel software currently used to implement and record client data.

Lane Kennedy – Financial Mentor

Lane has worked for both corporate and government entities and co-owned an accounting practice for several years. She set up her own consultancy three years ago to offer compliance services to small business. She has been involved with a number of community organisations such as Women’s Refuge and her particular focus has been working within her local Labour party electorate committee to achieve the goal of another North Auckland list MP.

This job done, Lane is now looking forward to throwing her energies into the North Shore Budget Service Inc. She feels privileged to put her financial and life skills to good use within the service to improve the lives and wellbeing of Auckland North residents. Lane is also responsible for the day to day financial administration for North Shore Budget Services.

Volunteer Financial Mentors

North Shore Budget Services has a team of volunteer financial mentors that are extensively trained, managed and supervised to assist with the work we do.