Dr Chris Tooley is the Chief Executive of Te Puna Ora o Mataatua based in the Bay of Plenty. He is also the Co-Chair of the Bay of Plenty Regional Skills Leadership Group, Member of the NEMA Ministerial Advisory Committee and Lead Technician for Iwi Leaders Chairs Hauora Group.

Chris is a recent recipient of the Blake Leadership Award 2020. 

Chris holds a PhD from the University of Cambridge which looked into the concept of self-determination/nationalism across western philosophy, international law and geo-politics and applied it to the question of Palestine. At Cambridge, Chris was the receipient of the Gates Cambridge Scholarship, elected to the Gates Scholars Council, an was an editor for the Cambridge Review of International Affairs. 

Chris completed a post-doctoral fellowship in politics at the University of Auckland and was the Managing Editor of AlterNative.

Previously he was the Chief Ministerial Advisor to Sir Pita R Sharples, Minister of Maori Affairs, Associate Minister of Education and Corrections during his two terms of Parliament between 2008-2014 and was Vice-Chair of the International Working Group on Indigenous Affairs (2015-2019).