Transformational change: New Napier council CEO settles in

It's a room with a view for new Napier City Council chief executive Louise Miller. Photo / Warren Buckland

New Napier City Council chief executive Louise Miller has been in the job for less than a month, but is sure that despite landing in one of Hawke’s Bay’s greatest crises, it’s the place she wants to be.

She is regarded by the council that appointed her – from a series of online engagements while she was backpacking with her two sons in Europe, the UK and North America late last year – as an experienced leader of transformational change.

Amid the Cyclone Gabrielle recovery, which she says will likely impact just about every council decision in the foreseeable future, the council faces other challenges, including getting back into permanent headquarters after the condemning and demolition of the Civic Centre, change impacting all councils in another era of local government change and, dare anyone say it, Three Waters, whichever way they flow.

There are other issues. There are a significant number of positions to be filled on the council staff and she’d like to see locals being prepared to take them up, and revealed in a release - about the time she spoke with Hawke’s Bay Today on Tuesday - details of a Local Government New Zealand CouncilMark assessment commissioned voluntarily by the council last year.

An A-rating assessed in 2017 is now a B-rating, with Napier Mayor Kirsten Wise saying it has reinforced the council’s commitment to building long-term strategic leadership and a positive organisational structure.

But it’s a bit like Miller has been there before, having been chief executive of Kaipara District Council from 2018 until last year, seeing it through its revival after being placed in the hands of a commissioner, the installation of a new council and the building of a new Civic Centre.

The holder of degrees from the University of Leicester and the University of London, she’s possibly got the better end of the deal for the present, a corner office in the temporary council headquarters of the Cape View building, on a Marine Parade corner and named for its view.

She replaces Dr Stephanie Rotarangi, the council’s first female chief executive ever (or town clerk, as the position was historically known).

Also having arrived at a time of crisis, as Napier was recovering from the November 2020 floods, Rotarangi resigned in late July after less than 18 months in the job to take up a senior Fire and Emergency New Zealand role.

Miller says she’s already found a Napier “passion” among the staff – she’s even noticed while out walking Loki her dog in the mornings.

He’s “a bit loopy and still probably a puppy at heart”, but he does allow her time to stop to talk with people she may encounter along the way, such as council gardening staff.

She had previously visited Napier on holiday, and has found the city “very family-friendly”, with lots of places for “kids to hang out”, such as BaySkate, the basketball hoops free space and the soon-to-re-open Ocean Spa.

Appointed to a five-year contract – the going thing in such senior Council appointments nationwide these days, meaning she could reapply for the position in 2028 if she wants - she says: “I’m actually looking forward to getting to do a few things.”