Philip Shackleton started his working career as a Sales coordinator with a small private Company in Auckland in 1987 and over the next 9 years moved rapidly into senior Sales
management roles before joining Firth as National Distributor Manager in 1995. Fed up with the Auckland lifestyle Philip moved back to Dunedin in 1996 joining the Cities Economic Development Unit as a Business Development Officer. Philip worked for 5 years providing strategic support to Small and Medium sized businesses. He also managed a couple of key projects including the establishment of Dunedin’s Fashion incubator and a four round Professional Golf Tournament “The Dunedin Classic” led by leading professional Greg Turner.

Philip moved with partner Kathryn, twins Sarah and Thomas to Wanganui in 2001 to take up the role of Economic Development Manager for the Wanganui District Council. After five great years in the role and the town showing strong growth it was time to move on. In May 2006 still committed to Wanganui, Philip established Economic Development Consultants Ltd, providing services to Local Government and the private sector. Using Wanganui as a base the workload has been steady with contracts in the first year including, Business planning for SME’s, Branding, Tertiary education training needs analysis, Tourism development, Government funding applications and database development. Philip is also the founding Director of Golfdata Ltd which is an I.T Company developing new products for export. Qualifications include a Bachelors’ degree in Science (University of Otago), Diploma In Business in Marketing (Auckland MBA School) and in 2007 he became one of 7 accredited members of the Economic Development Association of New Zealand, College of practitioners.

Philip’s passions include family, golf and economic development. Philip was Vice President of the Chamber of Commerce and now CEO, a member of Wanganui’s Autism Committee and Chairman of the Programme committee of Rotary club of Wanganui.