Originally from the Scottish border town of Jedburgh, Gwen was raised in Hamilton and went to Sacred Heart Girl’s College.
At the age of 19 she moved to Vienna, Austria, where she spent the next nineteen years living and raising her daughter Karina.
Gwen and her husband Doug settled for a while in the San Francisco Bay Area where they spent many years living on a classic yacht in the beautiful harbour of Sausalito. The plan was always to eventually move to New Zealand and in 2009 they made that happen.
Gwen’s work life has been varied and very interesting. She is an Authorised Financial Adviser, providing financial advice and investment planning to Kiwis. During her time in Austria in the 1980s and 1990s she brokered trade deals with Eastern European countries. In California she was a mortgage broker who helped hundreds of people to stay safe during a time of great volatility in the US mortgage market.
Gwen is very proud of her daughter Karina who remains in Austria teaching art at the Vienna Boy’s Choir and her 6 year old grand-daughter Anna who loves nothing more than to talk to her grandmother on the phone.