New Napier council CEO led council recovery in Northland

New Napier City Council chief executive officer Louise Miller, who led the revival of the Kaipara District Council in Northland. Photo / Supplied

A former Northland council chief executive has been appointed CEO of the Napier City Council and will take up the position in mid-March.

Louise Miller was chief executive of Kaipara District Council from 2018 to last year, seeing it through its revival after six years of commissioner control, after debt situations forced the Minister of Local Government to take action in 2012.

She saw the election of a first new council and the building of a new civic centre, and is primed for a similar bricks-and-mortar task in Hawke’s Bay.

Since leaving the council last October she has been travelling in Europe and the United Kingdom, and will now have another civic centre build in her sights as the Napier council plans and builds a new precinct to replace the former council buildings which were shut-down after failing an earthquake risk assessment in 2017 and which are now nearing the end of demolition.

Napier also next year marks 150 years since the establishment of city council foundation stone the Napier Borough Council.

Miller replaces Dr Stephanie Rotarangi, the council’s first-ever female town clerk or CEO who resigned in late July after less than 18 months in the job.

Mayor Kirsten Wise says she is thrilled with the appointment.

“We have a work programme ahead of us that will require a high calibre of talent, commitment to our shared goals and a future-focused mind-set,” she said. “These are all attributes Louise has and nurtures in others.”

Before her Kaipara job, Miller had had other experience in senior local government leadership, at Tauranga City Council and in England at Dacorum Borough Council, Hertfordshire.

“Napier has a lot going for it and it’s an attractive proposition for this quality of employment candidate,” Wise said. “It’s beautiful and full of possibility, with a number of major significant projects in the pipeline, and huge opportunity to make real and lasting positive impacts for our community.”

Miller holds degrees from the University of Leicester and the University of London, and is an experienced leader of transformational change.

She was chair of Taituarā Workforce Committee until late last year and has been awarded the Taituarā 2021 AskYourTeam Melbourne Business School Leadership Scholarship, judges having noted: “Louise clearly exemplifies what it means to be a local government leader with strong experience and authenticity”.