Defence Experience

My background is as a Professional Engineer, one of my major highlights of my time in defence as a Principal Advisor has been the acquisition of access to a satellite communications system. I have started the project to replace the Defence High Frequency Radio capability. Defence has declassified the Cabinet paper on this subject here.

Defence has a range of weapons systems it is important to understand them and understand the people.

Commerce Commission

As a Chief Advisor in the Telecommunications branch, I was exposed to a variety of mainly telecommunications work. There was always the thrill of assembling a variety of submissions and presenting draft determinations to the Commission. I consider the 2004/2005 determination to be one of the more interesting determination. They were all interesting but this particular one (Appendix 8 Page 174) (here) involved a skill that I had not used for many years. It took me a weekend to layout the problem and solve the maths. I then had a mathematics and economics lecturer confirm my solution to the problem. They took perhaps one hour to do it.

Telecom New Zealand - Benchmarking Manager

The Telecom New Zealand Benchmarking Manager was a really privileged position. From this position, I was able to provide performance information that could shape Telecom New Zealand. Gaining information was not a trivial task.

To assist with this task, I was elected as the Chair" of an international benchmarking consortium consisting of British Telecom, Eircom, Telekom Austria, Telenor, Telstra, and Telecom New Zealand.

Pharmacy Practice Experience

I have worked for around ten years as a registered pharmacist. My career has spanned community pharmacy practice in a variety of settings, including low socioeconomic status communities and large urban pharmacies. More recently, following the completion of doctoral study, I have transitioned to evaluating wider changes in health policy and service delivery, with experience in ACC and Victoria University of Wellington. My work is underpinned by two goals: (1) to improve population outcomes and reduce system inequities, and (2) to improve how care is delivered through improving use of resources.

ACC

As a Strategy Advisor in the Provider Services Delivery branch of ACC, I applied a health services delivery lens to a variety of projects, including those related to optimising changes in injury treatment and referral pathways, assessing project risks, reviewing economic viability, and alignment with strategic direction.

Victoria University of Wellington

I have been based at Victoria University of Wellington in various roles for the past almost six years. I am currently involved in a number of health service delivery projects, including large scale Health Research Council grants investigating changes in pharmacy practice in Aotearoa New Zealand. I am leading work into the delivery of outpatient mental health services in the Wellington region using telehealth over COVID-19 alert levels 3 and 4 and am also a part of another University of Otago team investigating other aspects of this model of service delivery. Previous projects I have been involved in have explored aspects of health promotion, including the sale and supply of alcohol, injury prevention in the commercial cleaning sector, and the experiences of families with children suffering from multiple acute hospital readmissions. My doctoral studies, focussed on the development of nurse practitioner and pharmacist prescriber roles in New Zealand primary health care. My experience during this time has provided me with skills in grant writing, qualitative research, health services/ system evaluation, project management, and managing stakeholder relationships.