New Zealand’s chief Airline, Air New Zealand announced the appointment of Alison Gerry, Claudia Batten, and Paul Goulter to the board of Directors. They will be effective from their approval later this year at the Annual Shareholder Meeting. 

Therese Walsh, Chairman of Air New Zealand was hopeful that these appointments will strengthen Air New Zealand’s Revive phase.  The new members come with pertinent digital, strategic, and employment relations expertise that will bolster the management’s goals of prioritising people and customers. This will also mark Air NZ’s bid to empower customers by making promising investments in digital solutions.

Alison will assume the role of chair of the Audit and Risk Committee on her appointment. Currently, Alison Gerry is the non-executive Director at ANZ Bank, and Infratil Limited. Walsh is positive that the airline will benefit from her extensive experience in governance, capital management and audit and risk with those companies. The airline is also banking on her previous directorship experience at Spark, TVNZ, Kiwibank and Queenstown and Wellington Airports. 

Claudia Batten brings considerable digital expertise to the company. Her experience as the co-founder of Victor and Spoils (the world’s first advertising agency built on crowd-sourcing principles) implies a lot of promise. Currently the chair of Serko, Claudia has also been recognized multiple times for her contribution to New Zealand’s technology sector. 

Paul Goulter is poised to be NZ’s employment relations arsenal. Currently, he is the National Secretary of NZEI Te Riu Roa (NZ’s largest education union) and a director of the Co-operative Bank. Air NZ works extensively with unions and Paul’s experience as Secretary of the New Zealand Council for Trade Unions and as General Secretary of Finsec (the financial sector union) will be a great asset to the airline. Not to mention the 40 years of experience with trade unions in Australia and New Zealand. 

These appointments follow the retirement of long-serving directors Janice Dawson, Robert Jager and Linda Jenkinson.

Image Credits: Business Traveller