Dr Maggie Buxton

Strategic Advisor | Community Engagement Specialist | Creative Innovation Director

Strategy, foresight, and facilitation at the edge of technology, culture, and change.

About Me
I’m a strategist, facilitator and innovation practitioner with extensive experience helping individuals, organisations and communities navigate complex change. My work combines futures thinking, practical strategy, facilitation and systems awareness, often at the intersection of community, culture and innovation.

I’ve worked across diverse contexts: from ecovillages in West Africa to Indigenous-led organisations in Aotearoa, public institutions and emerging creative industries. In each setting I focus on enabling people to approach uncertainty with clarity, purpose and values-based direction.

Through keynote speaking, advisory work and one-to-one coaching, as well as AwhiWorld, the creative research platform I co-lead, I support clients to engage with the future in grounded and thoughtful ways. My work creates space for clarity, creativity and integrity in times of extreme change.

AwhiWorld

For the past fifteen years I’ve led AwhiWorld (pronounced aa-fi world), a creative research and innovation platform that blends transdisciplinary approaches to generate new ways of thinking and working. AwhiWorld collaborates with not-for-profits, grassroots community groups and cultural organisations across the environment, politics, spirituality, culture and the arts.

We are committed to initiatives that strengthen interconnection, build critical awareness and support resilience. Our projects are designed to bring people together, spark creativity and develop capacity for long-term impact.

I hold a transdisciplinary PhD from AUT Colab that explored place, spirituality and emerging mobile technologies. I also have an MSc in Organisational Development and Consulting from Sheffield Business School, and a BA in Politics and Education from the University of Auckland.

Alongside my professional practice I have worked in tertiary education for over seventeen years as a lecturer, programme designer, examiner and supervisor, supporting the next generation of practitioners and researchers. Most recently as an advisor for Academy Ex.

I’m also active in the voluntary and civic sectors, holding board positions and providing pro bono work for many not-for-profit arts, youth, and business groups. This includes past experience as Chair of Aotearoa Digital Arts, Committee Chair of Creative Communities Whangarei, Management Committee Member of Youthline, and Northland Chamber of Commerce Board Member.

I co-founded the Creative Technology Northland Network, boosting the creative digital sector in Northland, New Zealand. I’m a member of SEADS Collective, CIRET, ITD-Alliance, NZSA, NZPS and a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA)