Differences lead to trio quitting

Three directors who made up the audit and risk committee of regional economic development and tourism agency Northland Inc have resigned over differences of opinion on the organisation's management.

The three directors - Russell Shaw, David Caselli and James Parsons - were appointed in October last year to the audit and risk committee for the regional economic development agency and tourism organisation. Northland Inc is an Northland Regional Council-controlled organisation (CCO) and regional council chairman Craig Brown said the trio resigned after differences of opinion over the organisation's management.

The sudden and unexpected resignations were disappointing, Mr Brown said, but they would not adversely affect the organisation.

The Northern Advocate tried to contact the trio, but Mr Caselli is out of the country until the weekend; Mr Shaw, who is also chief executive of Top Energy, did not want to comment further; and Mr Parsons had not returned calls by edition time yesterday.

He had said earlier that while the three cited differences in views on Northland Inc's management as the reason for their recent resignations he would not want to go into the specifics of the differences of opinion at this time.

Mr Brown said, "While obviously we're disappointed, we respect the directors' collective decision to resign and thank them for the very valuable role they have played in Northland Inc's transition from what had been Enterprise Northland and Destination Northland."

He said all three were hired several months after Northland Inc was set up for their considerable professional skills and stressed their resignations were in no way linked to any shortcomings in that regard.

The resignations prompted the council to implement some operational changes while the hunt for a permanent chief executive officer continued.

Mr Brown did not believe the resignations would adversely affect Northland Inc's role in enabling and facilitating the pursuit of regional economic development initiatives. Colin Mitten, who has been serving as board chairman and acting chief executive officer (CEO), has given up the acting CEO role in favour of the NRC's CEO Malcolm Nicolson.

"This will free up Mr Mitten to focus more fully on his duties as chairman of Northland Inc and allow Mr Nicolson and the council resources at his disposal to oversee the organisation's day-to-day running until a permanent CEO is in place," Mr Brown said.

The application period for the CEO's position officially closed last Friday and an interview panel was short-listing the 24 applicants. He did not expect the resignations to affect the CEO recruitment process.

Meanwhile, Mr Brown said regional councillors would review the size of the Northland Inc board to decide if and when new directors should be sought.