The new Tauranga City Council chief executive officer is 59 year old Ken Paterson – the current CEO of Northland Regional Council.

Ken takes up his new job sometime in the next three months and will be paid $320,000 with a salary review after six months.

'The situation is I have three months notice as part of my contract,” says Ken.

'There will be some discussion between the two organisations about when I might be released, but three months would be the absolute maximum.

'I would very much hope that we could get into the job as quickly as we possibly could.”

He is excited about getting into his new role as soon as possible and believes he brings strong credentials to it.

'The situation is that I have in recent times spent some years in the public sector and spent the last four and half years with the Northland council.

'I have found it an incredibly challenging and worthwhile position, and I feel that the Tauranga position will be just as challenging; just as rewarding.

'The city's got a huge future and the process we are going through, the interviews, I have come to understand all the councillors and I have got a lot of respect for their position as well.

'At the end of the day, I think it is a very good move for myself and I'm very much hoping to be part of the team that will make a difference.”

Prior to joining the Northland Regional Council in January 2007, Ken spent five years as CEO of Techscape, an infrastructure works and maintenance company with about 290 staff formed by the former Waitakere and North Shore City Councils. Before that he was the Taupo-based generations manager for Contact Energy.

In his time at the Northland Regional Council, Ken was overseer of a broadening in the council's focus from largely environmental to one that also incorporates economic and infrastructure development, social and cultural matters.

He also reorganised the council's workforce and played a key role in development of the region's recently-completed multimillion dollar Northland Events Centre in Whangarei.

'In the past in the private sector I have looked at organisations and ensured that they are as efficient and effective as they could be and I have done that quite successfully,” says Ken.

'Here in Northland in the recent past, the situation is we used to be only an environmental organisation and now we are very much an economic development and environmental balanced organisation, which takes social and cultural wellbeing into consideration as well – so there's been quite a significant change.

'I think there's a changing situation in Tauranga currently so the challenge is how you rejig yourself to actually pick up that change and go forward.”

Ken is married with a young family. His wife and her family come from Waihi, where Ken has 10 acres with some olives.

'It's not the weekend retreat – trust me, there's a lot of work gets done.

'But most of all, the situation is that I think I bring some significant skills to the job and the challenges of the future; I very much look forward to those.”

Ken replaces former Chief Executive Stephen Town who left in September to take up a role as Auckland/Northland regional director of the NZ Transport Agency.

Ken topped a long list of over 30 candidates for the position.

Mayor Stuart Crosby says that from this long list they interviewed four extremely able candidates.

Ken impressed with his background, which covers both private and public sector administrations, and his experience finding innovative solutions in all the organisations he has worked in, says Stuart.

'The councillors and I also welcome Mr Paterson's very strong economic development focus.

'The elected members all agree we need to look at the council's service levels and find new and better ways to do things smarter.

'This might mean changing the way we deliver some things – but certainly we know the community wants us to continue to find the savings and efficiencies we can do within the organisation. Mr Paterson will be ideal to assist us to do this.”