Deborah Hart is the daughter of Ronald and author Inge Woolf, who arrived in Wellington after fleeing persecution in Europe. Until her death in 2021, Inge was working on a book, Resilience: A Story of Persecution, Escape, Survival and Triumph, about her remarkable life story, which was picked up and finished by Deborah and released this month.

Deborah has had a varied career. Currently, she is a member of the Human Rights Review Tribunal Panel and Chair of the Consumer Advocacy Council and the Holocaust Centre of New Zealand. She is also an independent reviewer of electoral laws and was previously executive director of the Arbitrators' and Mediators' Institute of New Zealand. She has been appointed a New Zealand expert delegate to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance.

Deborah lives in Auckland with her partner John and is mum to 3 adult boys, Nathan, Jason, and Sam, and grandmother to Hadar and Shalev.