Napier City Council chief executive, Steph Rotarangi, will depart Council in October to take up a new role as Deputy Chief Executive with Fire and Emergency NZ (FENZ).
It’s a return to her roots for the accomplished Dr Rotarangi, who became the first female chief executive in the Council’s history when she took on the role last year.
In her former role as Deputy Commissioner of Australia’s Emergency Management Victoria, she coordinated the efforts across multiple Victorian and Australian Government operations in their efforts to contain the COVID-19 outbreak.
She also led the 2019/20 Victorian bushfire response, state-wide reform of fire services, which encompassed some 50,000 staff and volunteers across Victoria.
During her career, Dr Rotarangi also led a number of international interventions, including acting as liaison for the last Australian and New Zealand deployments to wildfires across the United States.
Prior to this, she had stints in senior leadership roles across a number of fire services, including having been Chief Executive of the Otago Rural Fire Authority.
She is the fifth senior management staffer to tender their resignation to Council this year.
