We are living longer than any generation before us...but not necessarily living well for longer.
Across New Zealand and globally, older adults are navigating a perfect storm: rising chronic disease, increasing falls risk, cognitive decline, social isolation, housing pressures and financial anxiety. Health systems remain largely reactive, fragmented, and designed around single issues rather than the complex reality of ageing.
Ageing well is not just a health challenge. It is a whole-of-person crisis that spans physical health, cognitive wellbeing, home safety, social connection, legal planning, and financial security.
Solving a challenge this complex requires more than good intentions. It requires a leader who understands systems, can challenge the status quo, and has proven they can build something better.
That is why Hannah McQueen — and why now — matters.
Hannah McQueen is not a career health bureaucrat or a traditional senior-care executive. She is a proven disruptor who has already built a successful alternative to an entrenched system.
Her journey began with a deeply personal goal: escaping mortgage debt. What followed was the creation of a nationwide financial coaching movement that helped thousands of New Zealanders take control of their money, reduce stress, and change the trajectory of their lives.
In doing so, Hannah challenged long‑held assumptions about debt, financial literacy, and who financial advice was really for. She didn’t just educate. She changed behaviour, culture, and outcomes.
That same entrepreneurial fire, strategic rigour and refusal to accept “this is just how it’s done” now sit at the heart of Brightly and The Next Bit Podcast.
Ageing is complex. Risks overlap and compound. A fall is rarely just about balance. Cognitive change is rarely just about memory. Declining independence is rarely just about age.
Hannah brings a systems mindset. The ability to see how domains connect, where gaps exist, and how fragmented services can be redesigned into something coherent, preventative and human‑centred.
Through Brightly, this thinking translates into:
It is the same lens she applied to financial coaching, now scaled to the complexity of ageing well.
Hannah’s leadership resonates because it is grounded in real life.
She is a mum, a wife, and a daughter of ageing parents. She lives the tensions many families feel: balancing work, caregiving, health, finances and future planning. This relatability allows Hannah to translate complex issues into clear, actionable conversations without fear‑mongering or jargon.
She asks the tough questions others avoid, while remaining deeply human in her approach.
The ageing well crisis is accelerating. Demographics are shifting faster than systems can adapt. Waiting for incremental change is no longer an option.
What is needed now is leadership that can:
Hannah McQueen brings together entrepreneurial success, lived experience, strategic vision and authentic connection. She has already shown she can disrupt entrenched systems and deliver transformation at scale.
With Hannah at the heart of Brightly and The Next Bit, this movement is not about managing decline. It is about redefining what living well in later life can truly look like.
Because ageing well isn’t just the next chapter.
It’s the next bit – and the time to act is now.