Experience
The work that shaped how I see organisations — and what I bring to yours
Summary
My background spans thirty years of operating at the point where governance, regulation, commercial reality, and organisational credibility converge.
That career has been built in executive leadership, law, and board-level roles in complex, regulated environments.
Most of my career was in or alongside regulated industries — financial services, insurance, and complex private groups — where the gap between what organisations say is happening and what is actually happening tends to be widest, and where the cost of delayed clarity is highest.
I have worked as a CEO, General Counsel, and director. I have been the person in the room when decisions carried real consequence — not as an observer or advisor at a safe distance, but as the executive accountable for the outcome.
My work history is not incidental to how I now work. It is the source of it.
Executive Leadership
Current— Strategic Transition Advisor Focus
Independent Practice | 2024 – Present
I work independently with owners, boards, and executive teams at moments when transition is no longer optional — when a transaction, regulatory pressure, leadership change, or strategic reset forces decisions that can no longer be deferred.
My role is not implementation. It is to bring an experienced, independent perspective at the point where clarity matters most — before options narrow, before effort hardens into obligation, and before the wrong work becomes too embedded to stop.
Engagements are selective, finite, and grounded in judgment rather than activity.
Current work includes advising on business acquisition and sale transactions, working alongside a specialist business broker to support owners and buyers through the decision complexity that sits beneath the transaction itself.
Chief Executive Officer
Advanced Buildings & Restorations Group | 2021 – 2024
Joined an organisation that was operating under pressure without a settled framework, operationally fragmented across three states on different systems, and under serious pressure from its insurer panel — suspended by one major insurer and at risk with another. The branding presence was very strong in parts but inconsistent overall. And the underlying operating model lacked coherence.
The first task wasn't execution. It was orientation — understanding what was actually happening before committing to a direction. The work was not about adding activity. It was about stopping the wrong work, restoring credibility, and creating the conditions under which sound decisions could be made.
Key outcomes included:
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restoring client and insurer panel status from "suspended" or "under review" to "preferred," with new multi-year arrangements put in place
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implementing governance, financial, and compliance frameworks that stood up to audit and regulator scrutiny
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stabilising margins and operating performance through periods of workforce contraction and senior staff turnover
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resetting decision rights, operating model, and safety frameworks, with elements later adopted externally as reference points
What this role reinforced: that organisational credibility under pressure is not a communications problem. It is a clarity problem. And clarity, once restored, moves faster than most leaders expect.
Chief Executive Officer
Allianz New Zealand | 2014 – 2017
Appointed following the departure of the previous CEO into an organisation that had just lost a third of its workforce, operating across eleven sub-brands, and multiple locations without a shared framework or common direction. There was no shortage of effort — but it was uneven, not formally sequenced, and not resolving into progress.
The work began with understanding what was actually driving that before anything else could change.
The mandate was not growth. It was restoration — of operating discipline, internal alignment, and the kind of external credibility that regulators and distribution partners require before they extend genuine trust.
Key outcomes included:
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establishing a unified strategic and operating framework across multiple brands and functions
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delivering a significant improvement in customer advocacy during portfolio reshaping
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restoring cost discipline and operating coherence while maintaining revenue performance
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working closely with regulators, group leadership, and boards during a period of heightened scrutiny
What this role confirmed: that the moment an organisation mistakes confidence for clarity is usually the moment its options quietly begin to narrow.
Legal, Governance & Senior Executive Roles
Director | General Counsel | Chief Administration Officer
AIG New Zealand | 2008 – 2014
Six years across multiple senior leadership roles during and immediately after the global financial crisis — the period when AIG's global position made every local decision consequential in ways that had nothing to do with local conditions.
Responsibility spanned governance, regulatory engagement, commercial operations, and organisational integrity across a period of sustained external pressure.
What that produced:
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A multi-jurisdictional governance and compliance framework described by regulators as best in class
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Regulatory licensing secured ahead of market peers
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Rebranding, data, process, and client initiatives that contributed to significant profit growth and first-time industry Insurer of the Year recognition
What this period cemented: the ability to operate calmly and decisively when complexity, risk, and scrutiny converge — and to do so without the kind of urgency that distorts judgment precisely when judgment matters most.
Board & Advisory Roles
2010 – 2021 | New Zealand, Australia
Board and advisory experience across regulated sectors, industry bodies, and community-serving organisations — including the Insurance Council of New Zealand, the Ministry for Pacific Peoples, and a range of not-for-profit organisations.
This work included chairing regulatory committees, advising Ministers, and working across diverse stakeholder environments to align policy intent with operational reality.
What it added: a sustained view of how governance works — and fails — when accountability is collective, consequence is diffuse, and the pressure to appear aligned is stronger than the pressure to be clear.
Earlier Career— Corporate & Commercial Law
Allens | Minter Ellison | Eversheds | Simpson Grierson | Lowndes Associates | 1990 – 2008 | Australia | United Kingdom | New Zealand
Eighteen years practising as a corporate and commercial lawyer and litigator across three jurisdictions, advising on governance, risk, regulatory matters, and complex disputes.
Includes a New Zealand Litigation Award won with Lowndes Associates for dispute resolution work — one of a small number of such recognitions awarded nationally that year.
This earlier part of my career is where I learned that the quality of a decision is rarely determined by the quality of the advice. It is determined by the quality of the question — and whether the people asking it are genuinely prepared to hear the answer.
A fuller professional history is available via LinkedIn.
What this History Means in Practice
Thirty years of operating at the intersection of governance, regulation, commercial pressure, and leadership transition has produced one clear conviction: The organisations that navigate transition well are the ones that maintained clarity about what actually mattered — and made sound decisions before time or external forces took over the agenda.
Thirty years inside those situations has given me the ability to read their structure before it has been named. That is the work I now do independently.
If you are at one of those moments, I'm here.