Te Tākinatanga | Our Story
We’re on a journey to transform our business end-to-end; no mean feat as one of Aotearoa’s largest listed companies, with market capitalisation of around NZ$6 billion and over 65,000 shareholders & 3,500 debt investors. Alongside our business transformation, we’re investing billions into renewable energy. None of this would work as well as it does without an effective business assurance and risk programme.
Fortunately, we have a great one. But our wonderful Head of Risk & Business Assurance is moving home to the UK soon, leaving big shoes to fill – hopefully by someone just as wonderful, who can continue delivering an effective assurance and risk programme for Te Mata Hiko (Contact Energy).
Kōrero mō te tūranga | About the role
Reporting to our Chief Financial Officer, as Head of Risk & Business Assurance you’ll lead a tīma providing the Board and management with focused independent and objective assurance, whilst also ensuring an integrated and enabling risk culture continues humming across the business.
This is a high-profile role with an important remit. This role and team play a key part in identifying issues with our current processes, and in doing so highlighting opportunities for value-add. There’s a strong strategic drive – you’ve really got to be on top of what’s happening at Contact and in the external environment and what you’re doing to assure the Board we’re operating correctly. In the current environment that’s getting more challenging with the dynamic industry and market we operate in This team helps to ensure we are identifying and managing our top risks and taking a hold of opportunities that support our strategy and vision.
Which is where you come in.
The new Head of Risk & Business Assurance will step in as tātāriki of a well-established tīma whose collective experience in the team amounts to more than 30 years. Through a highly collaborative approach to planning, engagement with the business, reporting, and continuous improvement, we have a highly regarded Risk and Assurance function that works really well. The assurance and risk plans for our next financial year (Jul ‘23 – Jun ‘24) have been prepared, and will have been reviewed and signed off by the Audit & Risk Committee before you come on board. This will give you a strong basis to hit the ground running. Our CFO (who the role reports into) is a fantastic leader, and with the strong relationships you’ll build throughout Contact and with the Board this could one day be a great stepping-stone into any part of Contact.
(And Contact’s a pretty great place to be. The energy sector is interesting at the best of times, but here, we’re really walking the talk on ESG – environment, societal, and governance initiatives. If you want to do good, look no further: this role will contribute significantly to our mahi for a cleaner, greener, happier Aotearoa.)
Ko wai koe | About you
Driven by curiosity, you have a technical backing and understand risk and assurance deeply, but beyond the commercial skills, you’re an authentic, EQ-driven leader who can talk, act, and deliver at an enterprise level without losing sight of what’s most important to us: people.
Ideally, you’ll have led risk or assurance before in organisations similarly scaled to ours. This role will have core cross-functional relationships, so you’ll also need to be a superb communicator; a thought leader who can build great rapport with ease, influence across various levels, and really bring people on the journey. You have a deep understanding of the strategic link to risk and assurance, and mahi in a truly collaborative way that strikes the balance of being a compliance function whilst targeting value-add..
We should mention too that you’ll be presenting to Board Committees on a regular basis. They’re an incredibly supportive, accommodating rōpū, but no matter how much they try to put you at ease it can still be a nerve-racking experience, so you’ll need to be confident and have had experience presenting to senior teams before, ideally including at the Board level.
Additional Information
We support our people to work how, where and when works the best. Our corporate head office is based in Wellington and there’s a real advantage to being based there, however this role can be fully remote, and we’re open to applications from all over Aotearoa. (You might be interested to know we have a corporate office in Auckland, too.)
Contact is not a place you’ll stagnate. We are growing and offer superb personal and professional development opportunities along with a bunch of other perks like free health insurance cover, better-than-your-average leave, access to Contact Shares, a ‘Good to be Home’ annual payment toward your home set up & wellbeing, a trail-blazing parental leave policy, discounts on Contact Energy products, and more.
We’re excited to welcome a new Head of Risk & Business Assurance soon so if this sounds like a bit of you, apply now, or if there’s something you’re curious to know before making it official, contact Tash on natasha.gent@contactenergy.co.nz.
Please note, only candidates with the right to live and work in New Zealand will be considered for this role.
Research shows that while men apply to jobs where they meet 60% of the criteria, women and those in underrepresented groups tend to only apply if they tick every box. We're not about box ticking, so if you think you have what it takes but don't meet everything stated above, please still get in touch. We'd love to kōrero.
