The Roster Te Rārangi: Edition 31

Front desk to corner office
Renee Graham (Ngāti Toa, Ngāti Raukawa) started last month as te tumu whakahaere, chief executive at the Social Wellbeing Agency. Formerly the Social Investment Agency, it develops strategic policy across key social issues. For the past four years, Ms Graham has been chief executive of the Ministry for Women, having previously held senior policy roles at the Ministry of Education and Ministry of Social Development. She started her career on the front line at Work and Income. Ms Graham holds public policy and commerce and degrees.

No point in slowing down...
Chartered accountant and independent director Joanna Perry MNZM is an experienced risk manager and former Securities Commission board member. A keen kayaker, cyclist, runner and swimmer, Ms Perry has been appointed to the board of medicinal cannabis company Helius Therapeutics and will chair the board’s audit finance committee. She is a graduate of the University of Cambridge, UK, and rowed for the university. Ms Perry is a diversity mentor for the Institute of Directors.

Leading a Māori health team
Mapihi Raharuhi (Ngāti Pikiao, Ngāti Mākino, Ngāti Kea, Ngāti Tuara, Ngāti Waiora) has moved from managing the wellbeing initiative Healthy Families Rotorua, to Lakes DHB as its first director equity and outcomes. Ms Raharuhi heads the Māori health team and is an executive team member. A trained social worker with a social science degree, she formerly was the DHB’s suicide prevention coordinator, held a similar role with Te Runanga o Ngāti Pikiao, and was a programme lead at workforce organisation Te Rau Ora.

A new face for Waikato health
Julia Carr has joined Waikato DHB’s executive leadership team in the new role of chief medical officer, primary care. A GP and public health physician, Dr Carr has worked in New Zealand and Australia in general practice, health service funding and planning, public health, policy and research. Most recently, she was a senior lecturer in primary care at Griffith University, Queensland. Dr Carr qualified as a GP in 1998, and was a founding GP of Wellington’s Newtown Union Health Service. Her interests include Māori and indigenous health and rights, equity, primary care and rural health, and social determinants of health.

A veterinary view of health
Three-quarters of emerging infectious diseases originate in animals, said WHO announcing a new One Health High-Level Expert Panel will advise key global agencies on a long-term plan to avert outbreaks of diseases like H5N1 bird flu, Ebola and, possibly, COVID-19. David Hayman, professor of infectious disease ecology and director of the Infectious Disease Research Centre at Massey University, has been selected as a panel member. Professor Hayman joined the university as a senior lecturer in veterinary public health in 2014. At the University of Cambridge, where he gained his PhD, he studied bat viral disease.

Otago to start strong in 2022
David Murdoch becomes vice-chancellor of the University of Otago early next year with the departure to Australia of Harlene Hayne. The current dean of the Christchurch campus, Professor Murdoch is an advocate for equity, global citizenship and Te Tiriti-led partnership. An infectious diseases specialist and epidemiologist who advises the Government on COVID-19, he is co-director of the One Health Aotearoa research alliance. Professor Murdoch has important studies to his name in childhood pneumonia, Legionnaires’ disease and infective endocarditis. He has also worked in child health in Nepal.

Supporters of south Auckland
Lawyer Huei Min (Lyn) Lim MNZM has stepped up from director to chair of the Middlemore Foundation, which raises funds for health, homes and education projects in Counties Manukau. The local DHB’s chief executive, Margie Apa, is Ms Lim’s deputy. In a 30-year career, Ms Lim has specialised in commercial, corporate and governance issues. She chaired Foundation North (formerly ASB Community Trust) for nine years. Ms Apa was appointed to the DHB, almost 10 years ago. She became chief executive in September 2019. For five years, she was deputy director-general, sector capability & implementation at the Ministry of Health.

New meds' quality in his sights
Listed medicinal cannabis company Cannasouth Ltd has a new head of quality, Satish Nand. Mr Nand was recently quality manager for supplements manufacturer PharmaNZ, and has had more than 18 years in the industry, including at GMP Pharmaceuticals, Vitaco Health NZ and Douglas Pharmaceuticals. Cannasouth chief executive Mark Lucas says Mr Nand’s first priority will be driving an action plan towards good-practice certification in cultivation and manufacturing.

Experts join drug policy group
The NZ Drug Foundation has appointed epidemiologist and public health professor Michael Baker MNZM and addiction practitioner Tangi Noomotu to its board. Mr Noomotu is director of the Salvation Army’s Bridge programme. Professor Baker is director of the University of Otago Health Environment & Infection Research Unit. A multiple award-winning and much-published science communicator and author, he became a public health medicine specialist in 1994 and has been influential in COVID-19 strategy and in HIV/Aids and campylobacter prevention.

Milestone for Australasian college
Mark Lawrence (Te Rarawa, Te Aupōuri, Ngā Puhi) has become the first Māori to be elected director of the Royal Australia and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists. Dr Lawrence says he is looking forward to bringing a strong New Zealand voice, and a strong Māori voice, to the college. A Fellow of the college since 2010, he is a Bay of Plenty DHB consultant psychiatrist and University of Auckland academic. He has had five years chairing the college’s New Zealand National Committee (Tu te Akaaka Roa). Dr Lawrence holds a Henry Rongomau Bennett Memorial Scholarship.

Ready for the next system change
Northland DHB’s new general manager medical and elder services is Tracey Schiebli, who was part of the team that worked to establish Whanganui DHB. Twenty years on, Ms Schiebli says it’s interesting to be part of a system change in which the DHBs will be disestablished. Previously a health services consultant, she helped in the formation of Whanganui Primary Health Organisation (PHO). She has been a Whanganui DHB general manager planning and funding, a role that soon included general manager, hospital. Commerce graduate Ms Schiebli did postgraduate studies in tax law and policy.

Hospice boss' Mercy values
Te Korowai Atawhai Mercy Hospice Auckland’s new chief executive, Dene Coleman, says he has been helped in life by Mercy’s values of compassion, dignity and respect. Mr Coleman, who has masters degrees in health sciences and business administration, is a former management consultant. He recently was Comprehensive Care PHO’s general manager, operations. From 2016 to 2020, he was general manager of Auckland DHB’s surgical directorate.

Inspired by her mother
Disability trusts AccessAbility and Life Unlimited have merged to form the Life Unlimited Charitable Trust, with independent director Karen Coutts (Ngai Tahu, Te Aitanga-a-Mahaki) as interim chair. A public policy masters graduate, Ms Coutts has been a social worker with deaf people and was inspired by her mother, Margaret, “who was positive and proud of her deafness”. Ms Coutts is a former principal advisor for Te Puni Kōkiri and principal advisor, Māori, for Stats NZ. She is a member of the New Zealand Parole Board.

DHBs pick up ministry COVID lead
The Ministry of Health is losing Sue Gordon, deputy chief executive COVID-19 health system response, for a period of 12 months. Ms Gordon is seconded to Capital & Coast and Hutt Valley DHBs as transformation director. The role is about “more sustainable and safer services for our communities and transition to the new entities announced by the Government as part of the Health and Disability System Review”, says the DHBs’ chief executive, Fionnagh Dougan. Ms Gordon initially led the COVID-19 Hub and then the dedicated directorate from September last year.

Large shoes to fill
The children’s commissioner, Judge Andrew Becroft, will leave his post in October, and it is difficult to think of another forthright and compassionate person with his experience (or equivalent). The right person must be out there, though. Let me know of your new appointees for the next edition of The Roster Te Rārangi due out 19 July. Thank you very much for all help received for this bumper edition.

– Virginia McMillan, editor
phone 021 914 699 or email vmcmillan@nzdoctor.co.nz