Mr Richard Wood

Independent Trustee

Richard joined the Board of PSN in late May 2012 as an Independent Trustee.

Richard retired in early December 2011 after forty seven years in the public service.  During that time he had wide and in-depth experience in most aspects of public sector administration, including operational management, change management, development and implementation of new initiatives and resource management.  For the last twenty-seven years this experience has been in the social services sector, but in recent years working cross sectorally with other government organisations.

Since retiring Richard was appointed by the Government to chair the Taskforce for Action on Family Violence which includes representatives across Government, the judiciary and the community sector.

Prior to his retirement, Richard’s most recent leadership roles included:

• Deputy Chief Executive responsible for Family and Community Services in the Ministry of Social Development
• Chairing the whole of government Social Development Accord for the Tuhoe Treaty Settlement (to mid December 2011)
• Establishing the new Family and Community Services group as a separate service line of the Ministry of Social Development (2004)
• Implementing with Te Puni Kokiri and the Ministry of Health, the Whanau Ora initiative
• Developing the Family Services National Advisory Council (consisting of senior representative of stakeholder groups)
• Facilitating the work of the Family Services National Advisory Council in the development of a Families Outcomes hierarchy and a Families Strategic Framework
• Introducing into NZ, Mark Friedman’s Results Based Accountability (RBA) process, now being adopted by a range of central and local government agencies and non government organisations
• Developing whole-of-government regional social development strategies in partnership with twelve to twenty government agencies, local authorities and iwi.

During the latter part of his career Richard was involved in initiatives involving (and requiring) strong relationships across sectors and has established networks across more than fifteen government departments, local authorities, iwi and non-government agencies.  These include Mayors, Chairs and/or Chief Executives of Iwi, and Chairs and Chief Executives of NGOs.

Richard is a member of the Institute of Directors and completed their Company Directors course late 2011.

He is married with three adult children.  He and his wife Annie have ten grandchildren (to date).

Richard refereed rugby for twenty seven years and after a period of coaching new referees retired to follow his grandsons’ sport on Saturdays.

Upon his retirement from the Ministry of Social Development and a lifetime of living in Wellington, he and his wife moved in April to the warmer climes of Tauranga.

Email: rhwood001@gmail.com