Who got that job?

By LIANE VOISEY

Job title: Chief Executive, Management Development Centre

It's not often an English graduate - first-class honours from Victoria University - and newly qualified teacher decides to give it all up and become an accountant. But that's what happened when Bruce Anderson returned from his OE with his wife and decided "two teachers in a family was one too many".

Wellington-based Anderson, 51, began his career at the New Zealand Audit Office in 1980, and from there began a new career in auditing and public sector management. "It was a natural fit for me - working across all of Government, and on issues of Government performance," he says.

Before his new job at Management Development Centre, Anderson spent 15 years in general management.

In the Audit Office, he held the strategic and corporate planning role of assistant auditor-general.

He spent four years as chief manager of internal audit at the Reserve Bank of New Zealand, and one year with KPMG. He boosted his worldly perspective of things by working abroad, spending two years each at the Canadian Office of the Auditor-General and the British Audit Commission.

As manager, special projects for the State Services Commission he was like a roving adviser, managing Government-wide public management initiatives. One was the Managing for Outcomes programme, which aimed to focus public service management on achieving "real results" rather than outputs.

Anderson feels "attuned to the sort of attributes people need to be leaders in the public sector", which he says was a main reason for applying for the Management Development Centre job - he wants to develop talent.

Helping people develop their personal skills is "the easy part of the job", he says. He wants to set up an environment "where people can move to and from local government" and "experience a wider range of government activity as part of their career development". That way, he says, everybody wins.