Tauranga City Council's new CEO, Ken Paterson, starts work today and Deputy Mayor David Stewart is expecting a smooth transition into the role by him.

Ken has already met with some of Tauranga City Council's 400 staff by visiting Tauranga once a week for the last month.

Ken Paterson in his new office at Tauranga City Council.

'He's already met with staff and already had quite a bit of interaction with the operations of council, so I think he's in a pretty good position to hit the ground running,” says David.

'I think he's been very well briefed by our acting chief executive and senior staff so he's already well in the picture.”

He is due to have a formal meeting with the councillors on Thursday after already having had some discussions.

'We've all met with him individually a couple of weeks ago – he was down to talk to us on a one-on-one basis,” says David.

'On Thursday, the idea is to meet with him and work out some strategies, what is important to us as a group and what our expectations are.

'So I imagine for the next couple of days he will be catching up with staff and that sort of thing.

'I think by the time we meet on Thursday we will be at full speed.”

David says the Tauranga City Council has been in a holding pattern since former CEO Stephen Town left the job in September 2010.

'I think it's very important for us having him with a fresh pair of eyes coming in and looking at the organisation from the outside in, if you like – see what he makes of it.

'So I think that the main thing for him really is to get up to speed with the operation, certainly looking at the staffing levels and the efficiency of the organisation.”

Ken Paterson, 59, is former CEO of Northland Regional Council.

Tauranga City Council is paying him $320,000, which will be reviewed after six months.
Before starting at 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 generation 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,” said Ken in an earlier interview.
'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.