When the Room Changes Everything
Streamliner Productions x On Being Bold - Bold Steps Conference, 2018 to present
THE EVENT
On Being Bold is the creation of nine of New Zealand's most senior businesswomen — among them Dame Therese Walsh, Chair of Air New Zealand and ASB Bank; Dame Joan Withers, inducted into the New Zealand Business Hall of Fame in 2025; Jolie Hodson, CEO of Spark; and Frances Valintine, founder of academyEX — alongside Silvana Schenone, Alison Gerry, Royal Reed, Cathy Quinn, and Dame Paula Rebstock. Between them, they hold some of the most significant governance and leadership roles in the country.
They built On Being Bold because they believed something worth sharing was staying too close to the top. The careers and personal journeys of women who had navigated the hardest parts of business life — the setbacks, the trade-offs, the moments that don't show up in a CV — were not reaching the women who needed to hear them. Bold Steps was created to change that.
The annual conference has run since 2017. Streamliner Productions joined as production partner in 2018 and has been part of every conference since.
THE SPEAKERS
The Bold Steps speaker programme has, year on year, set a standard that few conferences in New Zealand can match. Across its history, the event has brought together a remarkable range of voices — from business leaders and politicians to athletes, scientists, and advocates.
The 2023 conference at the Viaduct Events Centre featured former PepsiCo Global CEO Indra Nooyi — one of the most decorated business leaders in the world — alongside Prime Minister Rt Hon Christopher Luxon, Emma Lewisham, Dr Lucy Hone, Jazz Thornton, and Judge Frances Eivers, among many others. The 2024 event at Spark Arena brought together a speaker list that included Kelly Bayer Rosmarin, Antonia Watson, Judith McKenna, Rukumoana Schaafhausen, and nearly every member of the OBB founding committee on stage. In 2026, Dame Sophie Pascoe — New Zealand's most decorated Paralympian with 19 Paralympic medals — and Jelena Dokic, whose story of surviving fifteen years of abuse before becoming a world No. 4 tennis player, headline a programme themed around amplifying impact, one bold move at a time.
These are not speakers who arrive and leave. They are people who show up because the event means something to them.
THE PRODUCTION
Streamliner's large-format screen setup — a central feature of the production — ensures that no matter where an attendee is seated, the stage feels close, the speakers feel present, and the visuals land with the impact they deserve. At a conference where the stories being told are often deeply personal and the moments on stage carry real emotional weight, the quality of that visual experience is not incidental. It is part of how the room feels.
As the event has grown and moved through venues including the Viaduct Events Centre and Spark Arena, the production has grown with it. Each year the brief evolves, and each year Streamliner's response to it does too — more refined staging, sharper integration between content and delivery, and a consistent technical standard that reflects the calibre of the event itself.
NEARLY A DECADE
Bold Steps has run every year since 2017, apart from the years COVID made it impossible. That Streamliner has been part of it since 2018 is a reflection of something straightforward: a client who trusts us to understand what their event is for, and a production team that takes that responsibility seriously.
The production of Bold Steps is, in the most literal sense, in service of something important. Getting it right every year — reliably, without drama, with the quality the event demands — is how we contribute to a room full of women who leave a little more equipped to take bold steps of their own.
