Governance Board

The Board of Directors of KiwiRail is appointed by the Shareholding Ministers and KiwiRail’s performance is accountable to those Ministers. The Shareholding Ministers may jointly remove directors at any time and entirely at their discretion.

The role of the Board is to guide the strategic direction of KiwiRail and to direct and oversee management of the organisation.

The Board establishes objectives and sets strategies for KiwiRail, then monitors the performance of KiwiRail’s executive team against those strategies. The Board delegates the day–to–day management of KiwiRail to the Chief Executive.

Typically the Board meets once a month, and board directors also form sub-committees covering Health, Safety and the Environment; Risk and Assurance; Capital Investment; and Governance and Remuneration.  

KiwiRail Board of Directors

David McLean
David McLean

Chair

David has had a career as a lawyer and banker. He retired in June 2021 after 7 years as CEO of Westpac NZ. During his time at Westpac David promoted a number of diversity and inclusion initiatives. David is a member of the National Advisory Council on the Employment of Women, and is a former chair of the NZ Bankers Association, former co-Chair of Champions for Change, former chair, and Distinguished Fellow, of INFINZ, and former member of the council of Infrastructure NZ.

Sue McCormack
Sue McCormack

Deputy Chair

Sue practised as a corporate commercial lawyer for 35 years before retiring from partnership in 2019. She is the Chancellor of the University of Canterbury and has previously been a director of the Lyttelton Port Company Limited, the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra and the Public Trust.

Rachel Pinn
Rachel Pinn

Director

Rachel is the director of her own transport consultancy business. She brings significant local and central government experience in strategic transport planning, passenger transport and procurement. Rachel has board experience in both central government and the not-for-profit sector.
Rachel is the Chairperson of the Tauranga Budget Advisory Service, on the Bay of Plenty Department of Conservation Board and a member of Tauranga City Council’s Heart of the City technical advisory group. Rachel is a full member of the New Zealand Planning Institute and has a master’s degree in transport studies.

Bruce Wattie
Bruce Wattie

Director

Bruce was appointed to the KiwiRail Board in March 2020. He has been specialising in providing corporate finance advice and assistance to clients since 1985. He was a partner with PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) for 25 years and continues to provide a diverse range of commercial and financial advice to both the private and public sectors. Bruce is a director of the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research.
Bruce’s technical specialisations include large-scale infrastructure procurement processes, infrastructure financing, financial analysis, capital structuring, business case development, economic regulation, business and share valuations, and cost of capital.
Bruce holds a Bachelor of Commerce and Administration in Economics and Accounting and completed the International Business Programme at Harvard Business School, Boston, USA. He is a Chartered Accountant with the New Zealand Institute of Chartered Accountants.

Maryan Street
Maryan Street

Director

Maryan Street was born and raised in New Plymouth.
She retired in May 2022 after seven years as KiwiRail’s Employee Relations Manager.
She has previously served on the Board of Housing NZ (2000-2005) including a period as Deputy Chair; as an establishment and then permanent member of the Centre for Housing Research Aotearoa/NZ; and as a government member of the Crown Forestry Rental Trust (2001-2005).
She was the President of the New Zealand Labour Party from 1993-95.
Before becoming a Member of Parliament in 2005, Maryan was a teacher, a union official, an academic and an industrial relations practitioner.
She was Minister of Housing, and ACC, and Associate Minister of Tertiary Education and Economic Development in Helen Clark’s fifth Labour Government (2007-2008). In Opposition, she had a range of portfolios including Foreign Affairs, Trade, Health, Treaty Negotiations, Environment, State Services, Disarmament and Arms Control, Overseas Development Assistance and Human Rights.
She has a BA (Hons) in English from Victoria University of Wellington and a Master of Philosophy with First Class Honours in Industrial Relations from Auckland University. She also has an AMusTCL in music theory.

Ed Sims 1 BW Crop
Ed Sims

Director

Ed Sims has almost 40 years' experience in aviation, logistics, transportation, and wholesale and retail industries spanning the private and public sectors of the UK, Australia, Canada and New Zealand.
Ed has extensive transformation experience, notably within Air New Zealand in the early 2000s after the collapse of subsidiary Ansett Australia.
As a member of the Air New Zealand Executive Leadership Team, responsible for the international airline, Ed restored the commercial strength and reputation of the long-haul operation while his work on aircraft interiors like the Economy Skycouch seat won global accolades
Ed was appointed CEO of SOE Airways in 2011, managing 30 million kms of airspace for New Zealand’s air traffic controller. Over this time Airways built a world leading reputation for safety, operational efficiency and financial sustainability.
In 2017 Ed moved to Calgary, Alberta to join WestJet, Canada’s second largest airline. Within months he was appointed as CEO of an organisation with more than 180 aircraft,14,500 employees, and a turnover of over $5bn CAD. The global pandemic hit shortly after Ed had driven the largest private equity deal in aviation history with the sale of WestJet to Onex for $5.5 bn CAD in late 2019.
Over the last decade his board and governance experience has included organisations like New Zealand Police, the office of the NZ Auditor General, the Canadian Business Council and as Global Chair of CANSO, the Civil Air Navigation Services Organisation.

Rob Jager 1 BW Crop
Rob Jager ONZM

Director

Rob has extensive executive, industry and board experience following a career of more than 43 years with Shell in a variety of executive roles, including Chairman and Vice President of the Shell Companies in New Zealand and more recently as Vice President of Shell Australia’s Prelude Floating LNG and wider East Browse assets offshore of Western Australia. Rob served as an independent non-executive director of Beach Energy in Australia until he stepped down from the Board in November 2022 for personal reasons. Rob also served as an independent non-executive director of Air New Zealand for nearly nine years, including as chair of the Board health, safety and security committee.
Rob chaired the independent taskforce on Workplace Health and Safety for the New Zealand Government, which has been instrumental in encouraging fundamental changes to New Zealand’s approach to workplace health and safety.
In 2013, Rob received the Energy Executive of the Year Award at the New Zealand Deloitte Energy Excellence Awards for his “standout performance in the New Zealand energy sector”. He was elected a fellow of the Institute of Professional Engineers in 2015 for his contribution to the advancement of engineering practice and leadership in the profession and was recognised with a Safeguard Life-time Achievement Award in 2017.
In 2018, Rob was awarded an Officer of New Zealand Order of Merit (ONZM) for his services to business and health and safety. During his career Rob chaired the Petroleum Exploration and Production Association of NZ as well as the Business Leaders Health and Safety Forum.
He holds a BE Mechanical Engineering (Hons), MBA (distinction), MAICD, and is a CMinstD, and FENZ.

Liz Ward BW
Liz Ward

Director

Liz has extensive operational, contracting and commercial expertise gained across a diverse range of industries including large-scale infrastructure, transport, fisheries and telecommunications. She has more than 30 years’ experience as a CEO, senior executive and strategic advisor across these sectors.
Liz has held CEO roles with Gough Group, Kennards Hire and CentrePort Ltd and is an experienced company director, spanning government, privately-owned and regulated entities such as NSW Telco Authority and Moana (formerly Aotearoa Fisheries Ltd).
She has an MBA and is currently a non-executive director of Service Stream Ltd, Ritchies Transport Holdings Ltd and Guide Dogs NSW/ACT.

Sina photo 2022 edited
Sina Cotter Tait

Director

Sina’s an experienced director with a governance portfolio focussed on organisations involved with infrastructure and community impact. She holds a BE(Hons), MBA(Dist) and a PhD and currently serves on the board of Te Waihanga (the New Zealand Infrastructure Commission), Whitestone Contracting, and the North Otago Irrigation Company, as well as community-centric organisations such as the Ōtautahi Community Housing Trust. She brings more than 20 years’ experience as a civil engineer specialising in the design and delivery of of horizontal infrastructure and asset management, and was active in the Canterbury post-quake rebuild. She believes in the responsibility for infrastructure leaders to lead on wider societal issues, including education, housing and equity, and currently sponsors the Cotter Tait scholarship at UC for Māori and Pasifika engineering students who aspire to make a difference in the world. Her PhD research examined the role of relationship management in delivery of major construction projects, and she remains actively involved in the challenges in the sector. Sina’s a Chartered Professional Engineer, Chartered Member of the Institute of Directors and a Fellow of Engineering New Zealand