Movers and shakers: Doug McKay's IAG appointment, new Transpower CEO starts today

Former Auckland Council chief executive Doug McKay has been appointed as a non-executive director to IAG’s New Zealand subsidiary boards.

He takes his post with IAG NZ and AMI Insurance effective February 10.

Mr McKay was lured from his post as head of Independent Liquor in 2010 to become the inaugural chief executive of Auckland’ super city.

Towards the end of his public tenure last year he commissioned an EY report that investigated whether Mayor Len Brown used council resources during an extramarital affair with staffer Bevan Chuang.

The $100,000-plus report dominated Mr McKay’s last council meeting in December, as members of the public and some council members called for Mr Brown to pay for all or some of the report.

Mr McKay has publicly said Mr Brown was never obligated to pay for any of the report when it was commissioned.

To date, neither the council nor the mayor have disclosed the cost of the EY report or any amount the mayor is willing to pay.

Auckland Council replaced Mr McKay with Stephen Town, the former chief executive of Tauranga and regional director of the NZ Transport Agency for Auckland and Northland.

This isn’t Mr McKay’s first appointment at a major New Zealand company. In March he was appointed as an independent non-executive director at BNZ.

BNZ co-managed, along with ANZ, Auckland Council's inaugural retail bond issue in 2012.

In addition to Independent Liquor, Mr McKay has held senior positions with Lion Nathan, Carter Holt Harvey, Goodman Fielder, and Sealord.

He is a director of NZ Food Company Holdings, NZ Snack Food Holdings, Wymac Consulting, and Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand.

New CEO starts at Transpower today
Alison Andrew begins her new role today as the chief executive of Transpower. She replaces Patrick Strange, who led the state-owned national grid operator for six years.

Dr Strange plans to rejoin the Mighty River Power board, where he served before he joined Transpower.

Most recently Ms Andrew was the global head of chemicals for Orica Australia, a multinational chemical and mining services company.

She worked for Fonterra for seven years and held multiple senior positions, including general manager for business excellence, commercial director of ingredients, and chief executive of the diary giant’s Fencepost subsidiary.

From 2007 to 2009, she was the chief executive of Lexicon Systems, a female-owned management consultancy.