29-30 MARCH 2021
LOWER HUTT EVENTS CENTRE
Our 2021 speakers are:
Jimmy is the Managing Director and owner of Waitomo. Grandson to founder Desmond Ormsby, Jimmy joined Waitomo in 2003 after returning to New Zealand from the UK. Jimmy became a Director of Waitomo in 2009 and was appointed Managing Director in 2016.
Alan joined TIL Group as their Chief Executive in 2018. Prior to this, he had multiple managing director and CEO roles both in New Zealand and Australia and over 30 years commercial experience in large private and public companies Alcan Aluminium, Smorgons, Amcor, Fletcher Challenge, Fletcher Building, OneSteel, Hall's.
His specialties include commercial accounting, board governance, corporate leadership, growth through acquisition ad export market development and supplier negotiation.
Catherine Beard has a wealth of experience in government relations and communication on behalf of industry associations, and is a champion for New Zealand manufacturers and international traders.
Catherine has close connections to key Government Officials and Government Ministers that have responsibilities for trade. As Executive Director of ExportNZ she provides strong advocacy on behalf of industry to communicate their business challenges to politicians, policy makers, the media and the public.
Gretta joined Bluescope Steel as Chief Executive New Zealand & Pacific Islands in 2018. She was General Manager of New Zealand Aluminium Smelter since August 2013. Prior to this role, she served as General Manager Business Improvement and Technology in Pacific Aluminum's Brisbane office.
Dieter has worked with a large number of New Zealand’s leading food and beverage exporters, as well as manufacturers in the agritech sector, helping them grow their export businesses.
With a PhD in plant biotechnology, Dieter’s experience covers senior executive and governance roles in the manufacturing and service sectors combined with business-to-business and business-to-consumer relationships, both internationally and in New Zealand.
Paul joined First Gas as CEO in June 2016 after more than a decade in a variety of roles at New Zealand’s second largest electricity and gas lines business, Powerco. Paul’s last role with Powerco was General Manager Operations Support.
In this position Paul led a team of more than 100 staff responsible for developing the company’s information technology, network information, and facility management systems. Paul’s team was also tasked with corporate affairs, as well as business and technology opportunities development.
Carl was elected as a Trustee in September 2013, and has served as Chair from 2018. Through his career, he has been involved in Heavy Industry, Education, and Compliance.
Carl splits his time between Energy Consulting and the family’s Sawmilling enterprise. He has previously served as a Board member on the Forest Industry Training and Education Council, and Chair of the Solid Wood Processing Association.
Carl is active in community based Trusts and Clubs, and a committee member of the Invercargill Cultural Welfare Society.
Campbell Barry was elected to the Wainuiomata Community Board in 2010, and served as Wainuiomata’s ward councillor for two terms before being elected Mayor in October 2019.
He was born and raised in Lower Hutt, and attended the local primary, intermediate and high school in Wainuiomata. He lives there with his wife Laura, and is actively involved in the local community – playing club cricket and refereeing rugby.
Richard is the founder and Managing Director of Westlake Governance Limited, and brings enormous practical experience to his role, having been a board chair and director for more than 25 years in a very wide range of organisations. As a Board Chair, he has particular expertise and experience in leading transformational organisation change, across a range of sectors.
He works across New Zealand and Australia, and is increasingly in demand internationally.
David was appointed in Jan 2020 in an acting capacity following the departure of the previous CEO, Vince Hawksworth. Originally from Scotland, David moved to New Zealand in 1997 and initially worked as an engineer with Opus International Consultants. Following a number of different roles within Opus, David was appointed Chief Executive and Managing Director in 2010. Opus was an NZX listed global infrastructure professional services company employing around 3000 people in 80 offices. He also served on the Board of Directors for Opus as a non-independent and executive board member.
Julie has an LLB (Hons) and MMS (Hons) from Waikato University and is a Chartered Fellow of The Chartered Governance Institute. Julie is a lawyer, governance professional and the former Mayor of Hamilton from 2010 - 2016. She has practiced law for 25 years and operates her own law firm in Hamilton.
Julie is chair of the Environmental Protection Authority, deputy chair of Governance New Zealand and Chair of Women on Boards. She holds other government and private sector board roles.
Neal was appointed as Meridian Chief Executive in January 2018. Neal joined Meridian in 2008 as their Chief Financial Officer. He them moved into the position of General Manager Markets and Production where he was responsible for generation asset management and wholesale trading. Neal held this position until April 2016 when he was appointed General Manager Retail, responsible for Meridian and Powershop New Zealand's customer sales, service and operations.
Vena joined Contact in October 2014 in a newly created role of Chief Customer Officer. Vena oversees all of Contact's functions that have been aligned to build the delivery of a best in class customer experience through our Retail, Commercial and Industrial channels, these include; marketing, sales, product and services management, retail operations and metering, customer insight, pricing, networks and reconciliation, LPG cylinder delivery, performance management and business intelligence and customer change.
John is the Director of Enerlytica and a former Director of Equity Research at Woodward Partners. John was previously Head of Research - Asia Pacific at Edison Investment Research, and Head of Research at specialist sharebroking and investment banking firm McDouall Stuart. John has over 15 years of analytical and consulting experience in the energy sector, including four years at Shell's global head office in London where he worked on the development of new E&P, gas and petrochemical business ventures across the Shell Group. John's work has taken him to more than 20 countries.
Earl is the originator of the idea of using Lake Onslow for significant energy storage via pumped storage. He has supervised a Masters and a PhD thesis simulating Onslow operations. His research interests are:
Mary Ollivier joined Utilities Disputes as Commissioner and CEO in February 2020. Mary was previously the Director Regulatory at the New Zealand Law Society and before that the acting Executive Director from January 2018 until April 2019.
Kerry Schott is Chair of the Energy Security Board and a Director of NBN. She is also a member of the Direct Assets Committee for Aware Super.
Kerry was Managing Director and CEO of Sydney Water from 2006 to 2011. Before that Kerry spent 15 years as an investment banker, including as Managing Director of Deutsche Bank and Executive Vice President of Bankers Trust Australia.
Former CEO of Hotfoot and Senior Executive at a number of NZ retail heavyweights, Juanita is the founder of RetailX.
Dr Alan Bollard is a Professor of Practice at Victoria University of Wellington. He has extensive experience as a senior public servant. He has previously held roles as the Executive Director of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Secretariat, Governor of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand, and Chief Executive and Secretary to the New Zealand Treasury. He holds a PhD in Economics and an honorary Doctor of Laws from Auckland University.
The Energy Collective creates and scales digital startup companies to disrupt global energy markets, and owns Electric Kiwi (NZ) and ReAmpedEnergy (Aus). Electric Kiwi has been the fastest growing electricity retailer in New Zealand for over 3 years. In 2018 Electric Kiwi won the Deloitte fast 50 as the fastest-growing company in New Zealand and was NZ Energy Retailer of the year in 2018. ReAmped began trading in mid-2019 in Queensland and NSW. Electric Kiwi has 60,000 customers in NZ and ReAmped has 10,000 customers in Australia.
David is a technical expert and risk manager specialising in renewable generation (hydro, geothermal and wind), electric power-system operation and electricity markets. He is experienced in resolving complex issues affecting value and risk in electricity, including renewable resource utilisation, energy and transmission pricing, electricity trading and operation, ancillary services, revenue metering and risk management integration.
David has extensive experience in the New Zealand power system and market and has also worked in Australia, Philippines and Singapore.
Jo Hendy led the Secretariat of the Interim Climate Change Committee and oversaw the Committee’s inquiry into renewable electricity. In her former role as Director of Research and Analysis for the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, she led independent environmental investigations into issues including sea-level rise and agricultural greenhouse gas emissions. Jo also spent seven years working for Motu Economic and Public Policy Research. She holds a BSc (Hons) in Mathematics, and a Graduate Diploma in Applied Science (Meteorology).
Andrew is an experienced energy executive with strong organisational development skills and a track record of delivery on business integration, transition and growth.
Andrew has over 23 years' of broad international experience in a range of senior leadership, management, commercial and technical roles.
Nigel joined Powerco in October 2002 and was appointed Chief Executive in October 2011. He was previously General Manager Electricity and has also held a range of other executive-level Commercial and Corporate roles within Powerco. He has an economics and legal background and has previously held roles with Transpower and Bank of New Zealand.
Alison joined Transpower in 2014. She has held a number of senior executive roles across various industry sectors, most recently as Global Head of Chemicals for Orica PLC. She is a Director for Port of Tauranga, and has been a Director for Genesis Energy.
Prior to these roles, she held a number of senior roles at Fonterra Cooperative Group and across the Fletcher Challenge Group in Energy, Forests and Paper. Alison has a MBA from Warwick University, and studied Engineering (Chemicals and Materials) at Auckland University.
Fraser Whineray joined Fonterra in March 2020 as the Chief Operating Officer. He is responsible for our New Zealand manufacturing site and global supply chain operations, sustainability, innovation and R&D, IT and safety, quality and regulatory teams.
Tracey Hickman joined the Genesis Executive Team in 2012 as General Manager Generation. In 2019, she took on a new portfolio as Executive General Manager Retail Operations. Prior to her current role, Tracey led Genesis’ Generation, Wholesale and Fuels portfolio businesses as Executive General Manager. On 1 September, 2020, Tracey takes up the role of Chief Customer Officer. Tracey is accountable for the Genesis Retail brand, LPG operations and a range of retail support functions for the whole business.
Fiona joined Trustpower in 1996. Holding a number of senior roles at Trustpower, her career has focused on leading and implementing change that supports our multi utility proposition and values our customer’s experience. In her present role, Fiona is responsible for the Customer Operations business; this encompasses almost all customer touch points and includes meter reading, provisioning, billing, collections and our Contact Centre.
Marcos Pelenur has held a number of senior leadership roles across the public and private sector. Most recently, Marcos worked in the energy, natural resources and science policy areas at the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment and was previously the Head of Energy and Sustainability with the Behavioural Insights Team in the UK. Before joining the public sector, Marcos trained and worked as an energy engineer and is Chartered with Engineering NZ and the UK Institution of Engineering and Technology.
Toby is a Consulting Director with international economics consulting firm Sapere Research Group. His expert area is electricity trading and risk management and he established himself as an independent energy consultant in 2004. Toby was the General Manager Electricity Trading at Contact Energy from its inception in 1996 to 2003 and has held a number of industry governance positions.
Richard Fletcher (PhD, BEnvSc) joined Aurora Energy as Chief Executive in January 2018. He has extensive international experience in engineering and management consulting. He has advised on energy regulation, asset management, due diligence studies for mergers and acquisitions, as well as engineering investment plans. Before joining Aurora Energy, Richard was General Manager Regulation and Corporate Affairs at Powerco and before that a senior manager at national grid operator, Transpower NZ. From 2000 to 2005, Richard was Head of Economic Regulation at Welsh Water PLC.
Peter is a chartered engineer and the CEO of Westpower. Prior to this he was General Manager of Mitton ElectroNet. Peter has a background in technical and commercial leadership in renewable energy, transmission and distribution engineering.
James joined the Authority as Chief Executive in September 2018. Over the past 10 years James has held various senior public sector management and advisory roles focused on industry and resource development across the primary and extractive sectors. He is experienced in organisational development, policy formation, operational service delivery, and compliance and enforcement. Prior to the Authority James was General Manager Energy and Resources at the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment.
Dr Layton is the immediate past chair of the Electricity Authority, a role he held for 10 years. Dr Layton is also a former senior fellow and chief executive of the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research (NZIER). He has been a director or chairman of organisations in sectors as diverse as banking and finance, health, scientific research, electricity, food processing, transport and information technology.
Ralph Matthes has a B.Sc.
John Hancock is an independent consultant to utility companies and their suppliers, drawing on his valuable combination of deep experience in both technology and deregulation as key dimensions of the strategic environment in the sector. He has a 20 year career in the utilities industry including 14 years with Ernst & Young, Capgemini and Hewlett Packard (HP) in the Asia Pacific. John has worked with over 50 clients in the utility industry across 11 countries.