The pervasive impact of regulation on society, coupled with regulatory failures often attributed to the performance of regulators, calls for the professionalisation of regulation as a practice, vocation, and discipline. To this end, governments and non-governmental organisations around the world have begun to explore pathways to build out the regulatory profession. New Zealand’s Government Regulatory Practice (G-REG) Initiative is one of these, and unique in that it seeks to build a professional community of regulatory practitioners across all levels of government and all regulatory systems. This research situates the G-REG initiative in an international context of regulatory professionalisation initiatives, and discusses the motivations for, and experiences with, developing a professional community of regulators within the public sector in New Zealand.