KEY POINTS:
Meridian Energy board member Tim Lusk is the company's new chief executive.
Lusk, 63, will replace Keith Turner who left at the end of last month.
Power industry sources have welcomed his appointment and say he has a solid engineering and infrastructure background combined with commercial acumen.
He
worked for five years in Telecom's wholesale division responsible for selling services to other phone companies, and there had a reputation for being being shrewd with considerable regulatory expertise.
Lusk has been on the Meridian board since 2005 and in mid-May will take up the top job for which Turner was paid more than $1 million a year.
Lusk did not return calls yesterday. A Meridian spokeswoman said he would prefer to talk after taking over.
Meridian chairman Wayne Boyd said Lusk brought a "wealth of valuable commercial experience" to the role. "Tim has had senior roles in Transpower and Telecom, which gives him a unique blend of experience with major infrastructure projects and in the regulatory environment.
"We feel he is ideally qualified to lead Meridian into the next phases of its development."
Meridian has been under fire recently for paying the Government a special dividend of $175 million this year as power prices rise.
The special payment is on top of a $60.9 million interim dividend also announced last month.
Meridian generates 30 per cent of the country's power and has paid the Government $2.1 billion in dividends since its inception in 1999.
Meridian is about to embark on substantial investment in wind power as part of its commitment to meet the Government's target of 90 per cent of generation from renewables by 2025.
In a statement Lusk said: "It will be a privilege to lead the company and its people on the future stages of its growth, innovation and leadership."
His electricity industry experience ranged from engineering development to electricity market development.
Lusk has resigned from Meridian's board and the company's general counsel James Hay is acting chief executive until mid-May.
TIM LUSK (Meridian chief executive)
* Born in Hamilton, 1944.
* Education: BE (Hons) Canterbury.
* Career: Project Director at ECNZ, driving the $600m HVDC upgrade project (1989-1991);
* GM Network at Power NZ (1992-1994);
* GM of Transmission Services and later GM of industry development, Transpower (1995-2001);
* GM of wholesale services at Telecom (2001-2006);
* CEO of The Marram Trust (from 1998 to present).