Tainui Group Holdings announce acting CEO after Chris Joblin steps down

Richard Jefferies, Tainui Group Holdings' chief financial officer, has been appointed the company's acting CEO following the resignation of Chris Joblin. Photo / Tainui Group Holdings

Tainui Group Holdings (TGH) has appointed Richard Jefferies as acting chief executive following the resignation of current chief executive Chris Joblin.

In June, Joblin announced he would step down from the role after 15 years with TGH.

Jefferies (Waikato, Ngāti Korokī-Kahukura, Ngāti Raukawa, Ngāti Tukorehe), who has been with the company for over a decade, is to take on the role from September 9.

Jefferies has been TGH chief financial officer since 2022. Before that, he was general manager of strategy and commercial.

Prior to joining TGH, Jefferies held finance and management roles with KPMG and Open Country Dairy, and he led strategy development in tourism for New Zealand Rugby and Manchester City Football Club in the UK in a contracting role.

He is also chairman of the Ruakura Inland Port joint venture (with Port of Tauranga) and director of TGH’s Hamilton and Auckland hotel businesses.

Although Joblin is to step aside from his day-to-day management role, he will remain a director on several TGH subsidiaries until mid-November.

Joblin joined the commercial arm of the Waikato-Tainui iwi as chief financial officer in 2009 and took up the top role about five years later.

“After 15 years at TGH ... [and] with the new ACC regional office, the new Te Arikinui Pullman Auckland Airport Hotel up and running and Ruakura [Superhub] well set up as a growth platform for the future, I believe the timing suits a new leader [coming] in,” Joblin said in June.

A farewell for him is planned for later this year.