SOLD OUT: Civic Financial Services Strategic Finance Forum

Adele is the General Manager Corporate Services at Western Bay of Plenty District Council. She is passionate about local government having been in the sector for 15 years. She has previously worked for both Wellington and Napier City Councils before moving further north. Adele is the current Chair of the Financial Management Reference Group at Taituāra supporting the sector activities and contributing to the key financial work programmes.

Kevin has been involved with NZ Local Government for 30 years, holding executive roles at Rodney District and Auckland Councils. For the last couple of years, he has been providing support to the sector through his own consultancy firm. This has included work on organisational reviews, infrastructure and water reform, business cases, mentoring, value for money reviews and generally acting as a sounding board. A previous member of one of Taituara’s reference group, Kevin is a Fellow of CAANZ, who is seeking to continue adding value to the sector, which has its own unique challenges.

Bruce is an established governance and risk expert within the public sector with active membership of audit and risk committees and directorships.

His practice also includes consulting work and investigations. His advisory work covers strategy, effective decision making, value for money and performance, organisational and functional "health checks”, and how clients can make collaborative frameworks “real”. Bruce's work has a strong focus on bringing together the financial and asset management disciplines within organisations to drive planning and performance plus deliver value for money.

Bruce is a fellow of Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand.

As Executive Director in the Workforce sector, Malcolm works with organisations and executives to uplift business performance through their people. He has more than 20 years of experience in designing and implementing enterprise-wide improvement initiatives that impact the workforce through organisation design, workforce transformation, change management, and business process improvement programmes. Malcolm has assisted public and private sector organisations with their HR, workforce performance and change management initiatives in the United States, South East Asia and New Zealand.

A recognised senior advisor in the workforce of the future, Malcolm has served as principal advisor to Indonesia’s delegation at G20 Digital Economy meetings, and has spoken at APEC on Building Better Cities, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Employment Policy Summit on Transforming the American Workplace, the Indonesian SOE sector’s 1st HR Symposium on Leading in Disruption, and industry forums in the United States, Asia and New Zealand on the workforce of the future.

Malcolm is committed to creating positive social impact and has served on the board of a healthcare charity in the US, as mentor/coach with Ashoka, an international organisation that promotes large-scale change to society through social entrepreneurship, and as executive-in-residence for the executive MBA program at Victoria University of Wellington.

Urvashi Yadav is a consultant at BERL. Her areas of interest and expertise are in labour and development economics. She has a deep understanding of the intricacies of regional economies, providing advice on regional economic development from a macroeconomic and wellbeing perspective. Urvashi is skilled at using economic analysis techniques such as cost-benefit analysis, economic impact assessments, and econometric modelling and forecasting. She helps to produce the BERL cost adjusters for Taituarā every year.

Frazer Smith has been working in Local government finance for over 25 years.

He has had experience across all facets of Local Government financing including budgeting, accounting, asset management and rating.

In particular he has been involved with the funding of expenditure through Development Contributions and other forms of central government funding.

Most recently he has been involved with the first successful Infrastructure Funding and Financing Scheme (and working on the third).

Gary is the GM: Finance & Corporate Support and Deputy C.E. for Wairoa District Council. He’s served the Wairoa community for 7 years, having previously fulfilled the same role at Westland DC for 3 years, after migrating from UK.

Gary directed first principles rating reviews and Revenue and Financing Policy reviews, embedded monthly performance reporting and delivered full Long-term Plans that were adopted on time for the first time in each organisation’s history.

He has previously contributed to Taituarā publications and last year oversaw successful defences against judicial review applications and represented the Hawke’s Bay negotiating team for cyclone relief.

Yong holds a doctoral degree in Economics and works as a Research Data Analyst at the Hamilton City Council. He is known for his Sushi model, earning him the nickname of Chef Economist. He is an adventurous and passionate researcher who hopes to use his expertise and creativity to solve real-world economic problems. He specializes in economic data analysis and uses econometric techniques to produce evidence that supports decision-making processes. He has developed various models, including the dwelling projection model, feasibility model and economic forecasting model. He is also expanding his research area to other topics, such as migration, non-residential projection, and spatial analysis. He aims to contribute to his team and the city’s growth with his knowledge and perseverance.

In my work life at Hamilton City Council. I am all about data, analytics, high quality public policy, and getting public infrastructure funded in different and innovative ways. In my non-work life I am a dad and a husband, who's adopted Hamilton as my home town after many years in Wellington. I'm looking to meet some interesting people at the conference and learning.

Jordan Hughes joined Ibis in 2009 as an Implementation consultant/trainer, and moved into the Product Manager role during 2014, responsible for the financial modelling products in the Ibis suite of software.

Through his time consulting across Australia and New Zealand Jordan has gained extensive experience personally working with over 100 Councils. With a good level of knowledge of the rating legislation for all the different territories Jordan has also expanded his knowledge of local government rating complexities through working on such projects as Amalgamation impact studies, legislation review projects, Special Rates Variations and many other Rating review projects.

Jenny Livschitz has worked in the NZ local government sector for 22 years in a range of leadership roles. Jenny is a Chartered Accountant and is employed as the Group Chief Financial Officer at Hutt City Council. She is a member of the Taituara Financial Reference Group and is a strong advocate for building capability and improving sector performance.

Mike is a partner in Simpson Grierson’s environment and planning group, based in Wellington. He specialises in local government and environmental law, with a particular focus on the regulatory functions and processes of local government (including under the RMA), and decision-making and governance obligations and requirements. He regularly represents local authorities in relation to RMA matters (including before the higher courts) and has appeared before many other specialist tribunals and council hearings on specific strategic and regulatory matters.

I have been married for 42 years and have 4 kids and 5 granddaughters who I love to pieces.

Grew up mostly in Palmerston North in Highbury attending Takaro, Monrad and Palmerston North BHS. Then joined the National Bank in Palmy straight out of high school in December 1977.

I had spent 40 years with the Bank being shifted all around NZ and held senior executive roles with the Bank which was taken over by the ANZ (the bank was my second whanau, and I loved every day of my job). My last role was GM ANZ Business Bank/ Retail and was a part of the biggest financial merger creating the biggest Bank in New Zealand.

I should have retired but wanted to help my people progress so undertook a role as Director for Māori and Pacific with MSD which I had the opportunity with working with some fantastic people.

After three years the role of CEO, Civic Financial Services Ltd was put in front of me and it just felt the right fit.

Sports crazy I represented my country in both Football and Softball in age group and had the honour of coaching the best domestic football team in NZ called Napier City Rovers. ( Liverpool supporter)

Elizabeth’s career spans 35 years in the local government sector including Hamilton City, Tauranga City and Waikato Regional councils. She also spent six years as communication and strategy leader for Local Government New Zealand. Her qualifications include a degree in resource management and a post- graduate diploma in communication.

She is passionate about local democracy and engagement with local communities.

For the past 10 years Elizabeth has run her own business working with elected members and council managers as a facilitator and consultant advisor around strategic change, communication and engagement and crisis management. She is also a columnist for the LG News magazine - providing fresh insights and/or practical advice on local government issues.

Raymond re-joined Taituarā in June 2014 as Sector Improvement Manager, before commencing his current role as Chief Advisor at Taituarā. He has spent most of the last 20 years in local government related roles, most recently with the Department of Internal Affairs.

He describes his job as two-thirds providing assistance to the local government sector and one-third providing advice to central government on local government matters. His ambition is to help develop a Local Government Act that doesn’t require changes every 18 months. He asks that you wish him well with this task.

Anthony Walker is a Director and Lead Analyst for S&P Global Ratings’ Sovereign & International Public Finance ratings group in Asia-Pacific.

Based in Melbourne, Anthony is responsible for ratings on sovereigns, state and local governments, and other public entities including universities in the Australia-Pacific region.

Anthony joined S&P Global Ratings in February 2012 from the Commonwealth Department of the Treasury, where he specialised in wholesale funding markets and superannuation policy. In addition, he previously worked in the Financial Management Group of the Commonwealth Department of Finance.

Anthony holds a Bachelor of Economics (Hons) from Monash University in Melbourne, and a Masters of Financial Management from the Australian National University in Canberra.

Peter Sikora is a Managing Director and Analytical Manager at S&P Global Ratings. Based in Melbourne, Peter oversees a team of credit analysts in the Financial Services and Sovereign and International Public Finance Ratings groups in the Pacific region. He has significant experience analysing financial institutions and insurance companies in Australia, New Zealand, and southeast Asia.

Before joining S&P Global Ratings in 1991, Peter spent six years as an analyst with an Australian commercial bank. Peter has a Bachelor of Commerce (Economics, Accounting, Marketing, and Commercial Law) degree from Deakin University, and is a Fellow of the Financial Services Institute of Australasia (Finsia).

Andrew McConnell began his term as Deputy Controller and Auditor-General on 1 May 2023.

Andrew was a Sector Manager at the Office from 2000 to 2010. He returns to the Office from the Ministry of Primary Industries where he held a number of roles, including Acting Deputy Director-General Te Uru Rākau – New Zealand Forest Service, Deputy Director-General Compliance and Governance, and Director Māori Agribusiness. He has also held senior roles at the Department of Internal Affairs and the Ministry of Justice.