- Inaugural role at the heart of Coast Waters leadership
- Lead governance, regulatory, commercial and support functions
- Build the financial and regulation foundations of a brand-new organisation
- Based in Buller, Grey or Westland
About the Company:
Coast Waters is a newly established, purpose-built water services organisation bringing together the water services teams of Buller, Grey and Westland District Councils into a single, unified workforce. Operating across a geographically long, diverse and often challenging region, Coast Waters manages an extensive network of drinking water, wastewater and stormwater assets, underpinned by significant council investment programmes over the next decade and beyond.
Coast Waters exists to provide safe, reliable and sustainable water services that help West Coast communities thrive. Their work is grounded in service, stewardship and partnership, with a focus on building resilient infrastructure, supporting community wellbeing and creating a positive future for the region.
About The Role:
The General Manager Finance and Regulation is a senior leadership role providing strategic direction across finance, governance, regulation and enabling services for a brand-new organisation.
The role’s responsibilities include leading governance, risk and compliance frameworks; overseeing financial planning, budgeting and investment decision-making; leading procurement, contract and commercial management; and acting as a trusted strategic advisor to the Chief Executive and leadership team on financial, governance and other organisational performance matters.
Ideal Candidate:
You will bring significant senior executive or general management experience within local government, utilities, infrastructure or a similarly complex environment, together with strong financial leadership, governance, risk and commercial acumen, and demonstrated success leading organisational support functions.
You will have proven establishment experience, having stood up a finance function in a complex, asset- and compliance-intensive environment, with a clear sense of which controls need to be right from Day One versus which can mature over time.
Your commercial and financial strategy skills will go beyond core finance, able to translate a funding sustainability target (such as an FFO ratio) into a workable, affordable charging pathway across different customer bases.
In addition, you will have:
- Treasury experience, comfortable managing an important borrowing programme ($200–$230 million), including LGFA-style guarantee and covenant structures.
- Regulatory and public-disclosure credibility with experience operating where financial decisions are subject to public disclosure, economic regulation and elected-member or community scrutiny.
- A track record establishing Board and shareholder reporting rhythms, and the diplomatic skill to work with a Board, a Forum of council and iwi representatives, and multiple councils with unequal shareholdings but equal voice.
- Comfort with a genuinely regional, resource-constrained organisation – pragmatic about what a finance function needs at this scale, and willing to build hands-on in the early years rather than delegate to a large team.
- A relevant tertiary qualification in finance, commerce, accounting, business, economics, public administration, law, infrastructure management or a related discipline.
This is a rare opportunity to build a finance, governance and regulatory function from the ground up within a brand-new regional organisation. A broad and influential role reporting directly to the Chief Executive, with genuine scope to shape systems, culture and strategy from Day One.