After another unsuccessful campaign for New Zealand at the Olympic Winter Games in Salt Lake City in 2002, three stakeholders discussed a concept to support the winter sports in New Zealand. These three stakeholders were the New Zealand Academy of Sport, South Island, the New Zealand Olympic Committee and the Lions club. In 2004 the concept became a reality.
Mark Elliot was the first manager of the Winter Performance Programme. Mark left the Winter Performance Programme in 2007, after the Winter Olympics of 2006 in Turin. In 2008 Ashley Light became the new manager of the Winter Performance Programme.
In 2011 the first three stakeholders (NZ Academy of Sport, South Island, the NZ Olympic Committee and the Lions Club) gave the ownership of the Winter Performance Programme to High Performance Sport New Zealand. A year later, in 2012, the programme went from High Performance Sport NZ into Snow Sports NZ.