Chief Executive Update
This week I complete approximately six and a half years as Chief Executive of Royal Society Te Apārangi. My first involvement was in 1984 when I was lucky enough to be a co-winner of what was then the Cooper Medal. I was then fortunate enough to be elected a Fellow in 1995. My election started a period of active voluntary involvement in the Society – adjudicating awards, participating in the Fellowship election process, being President of a Constituent Organisation and service on the Society’s then education committee.
My voluntary involvement was largely driven by my belief in the importance of, and the value the Society brought to Aotearoa New Zealand, but it was also driven by a desire to broaden the Society. Part of my motivation was pride in the engineering profession – the few engineering Fellows were regularly infuriated whenever one of the much larger numbers of Fellows from the sciences insisted we should be happy to be seen as part of science. My best estimate was that I was just the twelfth engineer to be elected a Fellow, following the first in 1976. Even in the 2000s it still felt like being an engineering pioneer in a science-based Academy.
So I was delighted in 2014 when the opportunity arose to join the Society with the opportunity to continue and extend the programme of progressive reform of my predecessor. The humanities had just been brought back in, but like the engineers, were in small numbers. I saw opportunities in technology, applied sciences, engineering and the humanities. We needed to be more relevant to Crown Research Institutes as well.
In practice, the programme of development in which I have been able to participate has been wider and I believe much better than I envisaged in 2014. That broader programme is due to visionary Presidents, forward-thinking Councillors and a great staff team. Being inclusive of all New Zealanders is easy to say but harder to do in practice, particularly if you do not want to inadvertently damage the enduring things which are the essence of making the Society and its Academy world-class. I have learnt a huge amount in the process, feel I have grown personally, and hopefully have made no irreparable mistakes.
It is not for me to judge whether I have been a successful Chief Executive – that is for the members and stakeholders. As I leave the Society, I do hope there will be further progressive change. If I have helped create some things that can be built on by others, I will be satisfied. I do wish my successor Professor Dame Cindy Kiro the very best for her time in the role.
It is a real honour to have held such an important role in an organisation dedicated to public service, and I am very grateful to those who gave me the opportunity. Many people are using the word ‘retirement' whereas I struggle to get past the thought of semi-retired. I still want to continue contributing to public service activities – be they little projects that arise from time to time, or as a volunteer. There is one important activity that I can resume once again – the role of a Fellow undertaking voluntary activities to support the Society’s Academy. After 37 years of involvement with the Society why would I stop completely?