Former Tainui Group Holdings finance partner trades role for job in social field

Enrich Group chief executive Karen Scott, left, with Management Services general manager Johnathan Tan. Photo / Supplied

Former commercial finance partner at Tainui Group Holdings, Johnathan Tan, 35, has traded his role for a job in the social field as Enrich Group's new Management Services general manager.

It is a new and critical appointment for Te Awamutu-based charitable trust Enrich Group, which supports people with disabilities and those living with autism and neurodiversity in Waikato, King Country and Bay of Plenty.

Enrich Group Management Services provides corporate and back-office functions to Enrich Group and similar organisations.

Johnathan oversees the critical portfolios of quality, health and safety, property, procurement, projects, financial management, HR, and marketing and communications.

He reports to Enrich Group chief executive Karen Scott, and supports her vision of providing individuals and their whānau with whole-of-life supports and resources, so they have the opportunity to live their best lives.

"We've got heaps of challenges and exciting times ahead," Johnathan says, referring to Whaikaha, the new Ministry of Disabled People, which launched on July 1.

You could call him a general dogsbody and he would not care; he is always up for a challenge. Creating strategy, managing risk and helping businesses grow are more important to him.

"It's never about a title," he says.

Instead, he wants to make the same difference in people's lives that New Zealand offered him.

Johnathan was born in Auckland as the oldest of three children to Cambodian refugees. He grew up in Hamilton, attending Nawton Primary, Maeroa Intermediate and Hamilton Boys' High for schooling.

Jonathan Tan, 35, is Enrich Group's new management services general manager. Photo / Supplied

He went to Waikato University to study the Management Studies course, majoring in accounting. After graduating, Johnathan joined Deloittes in the tax team, and in 2014, he worked for Go Bus Transport as a financial accountant.

At Tainui Group Holdings he was the commercial finance partner, overseeing the Ruakura Superhub project, private equity and direct investments and share portfolio, as well as looking after process improvements.

In 2012, Jonathan met his future wife Andrea, and the couple have gone on to become parents to three children. She is of Chinese Cantonese descent, which makes for some interesting language choices in the Tan household.

Johnathan's dialect is Teochew, one of the most conservative Chinese languages, and Khmer (Cambodian). He has a keen interest in languages, having studied Japanese at high school, and is learning Cantonese - something of a necessity, because his wife, in-laws and now children are all fluent in it.