Our executive team

Margie’s career spans over 20 years in executive roles in the public sector in Wellington and Auckland. This includes roles at the Ministry of Health (Deputy Director-General of Health), Counties Manukau District Health Board, Capital & Coast District Health Board, Labour Market Policy Group (Department of Labour) and Health Funding Authority. Margie started her career in the State Services Commission.

Margie's most recent role was as Chief Executive Officer, Counties Manukau Health. During this time, Margie led the organisation through major incidents including a measles epidemic, Whakaari White Island erupting, and was lead CEO of the Northern Region’s COVID-19 outbreak response.

Margie has a BCom from University of Auckland and an MPA (Exec) from Victoria University of Wellington. She is a voluntary Chair of World Vision New Zealand.

Fepulea’i is an honorific (or chief title) from her family village of Sale’aula, Savai’i, Samoa.

Mark brings broad health sector expertise, encompassing strategic and operational management, including executive level clinical service, operational, financial and performance management roles. His most recent roles include Regional Director, Hospital and Specialist Services for the Northern Region 2022-2024 and Executive Director, Hospital Services, Waitematā District Health Board 2020 -2022.

Mark has held large scale operational executive leadership roles at South Eastern Sydney Local Health District, Nepean Blue Mountains Local Health District and has been general manager in many tertiary hospitals throughout New South Wales where he began his nursing career.

Mark moved to New Zealand for a short-term opportunity and finds himself still here four years later because he enjoys working in New Zealand.

Cath has served in a number of executive roles in public health in Melbourne and Auckland since 2006.  Cath most recently worked at Monash Health as interim Chief Operating Officer Acute Services, Deputy Chief Operating Officer Monash Surgery and Director Transformation. Cath also worked at Waitematā District Health Board as Director Hospital Services and before that Clinical Director, Surgical Services at Alfred Health. 

Prior to 2006, Cath’s nursing career spans a diverse range of specialties at Waikato Hospital, Auckland City Hospital, Royal Children’s Hospital Melbourne, Middlemore and Alfred Health.  

Cath is looking forward to, bringing her experiences to benefit whānau and communities in the Te Manawa Taki region.

Robyn is a respected, strategic leader with a proven track record in the health and disability sector.

Robyn has held a range of executive leadership roles, most recently as Deputy Director General for Clinical, Community and Mental Health at the Ministry of Health - Manatū Hauora.

Prior to this, she was the Ministry’s Deputy Director General DHB Performance, System Performance and Monitoring and was involved in establishing and leading the Mental Health Directorate.

Before joining the Ministry, she was Chief Executive at Te Pou o te Whakaaro Nui for 10 years. Te Pou (for short) was the national workforce development centre for mental health, addictions and disability.

Robyn has also worked in a number of former DHBs in management and frontline mental health nursing roles and the Health Research Council

Martin is an accomplished health service executive with many years of clinical and management experience in a variety of roles within health care settings. Martin was Chief Operating Officer and interim Chief Executive at Monash Health in Melbourne.

During his time at Monash, Martin spearheaded operational and strategic delivery of Victoria’s largest mass vaccination and outbreak management supports during COVID.  He also oversaw major capital investments and commissioning of a new Monash Children's Hospital, Australasia's first dedicated cardiac hospital and one of the largest organisation-wide Electronic Medical Record (EMR) implementations.

Originally trained as a registered nurse, Martin practiced in emergency and cardiology and intensive care nursing.

Martin has a proven track record in identifying and implementing improvements to enhance patient safety, access and patient and employee experience.

Ko Riana Manuel taku ingoa
Ko Moehau kei waho
Ko Te aroha ki uta
Ko Hauraki te Whenua
Ko Tikapa te Moana
No Te Awaawa o Manaia toku ūkaipo
Ko Ngāti Pukenga, Ngāti Maru, Ngāti Kahungunu oku Iwi
Ko Mataatua, Tainui, Takitimu oku waka

As the head of the Hauora Māori Service Directorate, Riana has been the Chief Executive for Te Aka Whai Ora | Māori Health Authority and the Executive Leader for a number of Kaupapa Māori organisations including Hauraki Primary Health Organisation and Te Korowai Hauora o Hauraki. Riana is a very skilled, strategic visionary providing instrumental leadership over her career in Māori and health sector organisations.

Learn a bit more about her:

I am a village girl and have spent my whole career working to improve the outcomes for our people here in Aotearoa.

I am a registered nurse by trade and have enjoyed a career that has seen me work across many different parts of the sector developing strong relationships as I go.I am a daughter to two of the best parents one could have asked for, a wife to an amazing husband, a mother to my beautiful tamariki, a nanny (which is by far my favourite role), a sister, and an aunty to many.

I am deeply committed to improving the health of wellbeing of my people and believe in doing so it will impact positively on the health and wellbeing of our great country, Aotearoa.

Ma te kahukura, ka rere te manu.

Dr Nick Chamberlain was Northland DHB Chief Executive for nearly 12 years. He has specialist qualifications in Medical Administration and General Practice. He has previously had roles as General Manager of Clinical Service at Northland DHB, General Manager of Planning and Funding at Capital & Coast DHB, Clinical Advisor and GP Liaison, Northland DHB, and 11 years in his own General Practices.

He has held DHB lead Chief Executive roles in Primary Care and Public Health. Over the past few years, he has tried to provide some leadership and support for our Public Health Units, and with Vui Mark Gosche has led a small team promoting effective public policy and legislation.

He looks forward to building a strong and effective team to strengthen and nationalise our public health services. In addition, he wants to broaden the reach of public and population health through our work with iwi, Māori and Pacifica providers into all our communities and localities. He is also excited to work closely with the Māori Health Authority and the Public Health Agency.

Responsible for operational planning and delivery of public health promotion, prevention, intelligence and health protection services. 

Guided by the Pae Ora (Healthy Futures) Act 2022, the National Public Health Service provides services that are nationally planned, regionally coordinated and locally tailored. This team contributes to the reform system shift “All people will be able to access a comprehensive range of support in their local communities to help them stay well”, by ensuring the delivery of public health services nationally, regionally and locally keep communities well.

All local public health services report to one of four Regional Directors who report to the National Director. The service works in partnership with Hauora Māori Service Directorate and the Public Health Agency within Manatū Hauora (Ministry of Health).

Most recently the National Director for Service Improvement and Innovation for Health New Zealand, Dr Bramley was previously the Chief Executive of Waitematā District Health Board for 11 years – serving a population of around 625,000 people and a staff of 8,700.

He is a public health medicine specialist and experienced senior leader within the New Zealand health sector. He has previously served as Chair of New Zealand’s Health Quality & Safety Commission.

He has also served as a member of New Zealand’s National Health Committee, National Ethics Committee and the New Zealand Government’s COVID-19 independent review and advice group.

Dr Bramley is an adjunct Professor at Auckland University of Technology. He has tribal affiliations to Ngā Puhi.

Planning, Funding and Outcomes (PFO) seeks to improve health outcomes for all New Zealanders by using evidence, data insights and clinical advice to plan, fund, monitor and improve nationwide health services.

It brings together people with significant clinical and technical skills across planning, strategy, performance, commissioning and data and analytics.

It has a strong leadership role in national planning and performance against key outcome measures including health targets, and will provide analytical support to the four regions.

Programmes will be informed by engagement with, and leadership from, clinicians, sector experts, service providers, people with lived experience, communities and whānau.

Markerita (Meg) most recently held the role of Chief of Strategy at Health New Zealand - Te Toka Tumai Auckland. She has a very strong focus on transformation of health structures to reflect Te Tiriti in both action and equity. As lead for Performance Improvement, she was instrumental in delivering new equity approaches within planned care delivery in Auckland.

Markerita has also worked as the Director of Pacific Health for the Northern Region Health Coordination Centre where she led the regional (from Northland to Counties Manukau) approach to the Pacific health response to COVID-19 and partnered with the Pacific Provider Collective to develop a regional commissioning framework to deliver adaptive models of care. She is a partnerships specialist and has a background in law and Pacific development.

She is experienced in change leadership, Pacific health equity and designing new models of care with communities.

Responsible for Pacific health equity leadership and influencing transformation across the system.

The team is accountable for Pacific commissioning and intelligence; workforce development; provider development; Pacific hospital care teams and ensuring localities work effectively for Pacific populations. The team ensures that funding flows directly to Pacific providers and communities, and delivery is responsive. The team leads the implementation of Ola Manuia – the Pacific Health Plan.

Accountable for building critical Pacific health foundations and accelerating gains in priority areas to improve the health of Pacific families and communities.

The service works closely with Hauora Māori Service Directorate on system changes for equity that will benefit both Māori and Pacific health and wellbeing outcomes. This team supports all system shifts to deliver change for Pacific families.

Dr Richard Sullivan brings a wealth of experience as a medical oncologist and was Director Northern Region Cancer and Blood Services for 17 years.

Dr Sullivan is regional clinical lead cancer, the Chair of National AYA Cancer and is a director at Canopy Cancer Care.

Responsible for effective and high-performing clinical governance across the whole system, ensuring excellent quality and safe care delivery and experience for all patients and whānau. This team ensures clinical and professional input is engaged on strategy, service design and its delivery.

Provides professional leadership, including credentialing, scopes of practice, performance, conduct and professional development of clinical staff.

Partners with service leadership and provides leadership to national, regional and local clinical networks. This team supports all system shifts by ensuring clinical advice and expertise underpins all decision making.

Working in partnership with Hauora Māori Service Directorate to ensure that equity of outcomes are improved.

Meet the Clinical Leadership Team

Bio to come

Oversees the structure and systems for national and regional financial management functions.

This group drives change and supports all system shifts through high-quality financial management advice and support.

This team is responsible for the efficient discharge of national transaction payment processing systems, informing and monitoring budget performance, and enabling change through good quality advice on benefits and value in decision making.

All finance functions and teams report nationally to the Chief Financial Officer.

As a former Royal Engineer officer in the British Army, Jeremy led a number of specialist units delivering critical infrastructure and large-scale construction programmes both on operational deployments and in the UK defence estate, for which he was awarded an MBE in 2007. He moved to New Zealand with his family in 2009 and was employed by the infrastructure consultancy GHD before moving to Downer as the General Manager Water. He also spent time at Air New Zealand as a member of the Senior Leadership Team responsible for ground handling operations in New Zealand and around the world. Before joining Health New Zealand, Jeremy was GM Infrastructure Delivery for Crown Infrastructure Partners, delivering a number of major infrastructure programmes receiving $6 billion of NZ Government stimulus funding.

Jeremy holds two engineering degrees, a Master of Business Administration, is a Chartered Engineer and is a Fellow of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (UK).

Ensures investment in health facilities and other forms of infrastructure is improving the quality, accessibility and equity of health care across the country, while ensuring local, regional and national requirements are considered. This team contributes to all system shifts by ensuring that capital investment in infrastructure is informed by and supports the delivery of healthcare. 

This is achieved through the ongoing asset management, renewal and maintenance of our health infrastructure assets across the country and by managing the multi-billion-dollar infrastructure investment capital pipeline. This includes the design, procurement and delivery of new infrastructure and facilities across Aotearoa New Zealand. 

With an early career in education, commercial banking, and pharmaceutical manufacturing, Ramon has spent the last decade in the public health sector as the Chief Audit Executive for healthAlliance. He managed internal audit services across the Northern Region preparing various audit plans and budgets and reporting to seven audit committees.  

Alongside his responsibilities at healthAlliance, Ramon has also played a key role in the development of Health NZ’s national audit charter and internal audit plan prior to going live in 2022. This included identification of risks introduced through the transition period. 

In his current role, Ramon intends to strengthen in-house capabilities in risk management and advisory. He will be hard at work establishing internal audit as an independent and trusted adviser to Management and the Board.  

Ramon holds an MBA from Southern Methodist University, a Master of Science (Accounting) from the University of Texas, and a Bachelor of Science (Management) from Ateneo de Manila University. Ramon is also a Chartered Accountant with CAANZ, a Certified Internal Auditor with IIA-Global, was named Internal Auditor of the Year 2017, and recently elected to the Board of IIA-NZ.   

Outside of Health NZ, Ramon spends time volunteering as honorary auditor at not-for-profit organisations, and mentoring up-and-coming auditors.  

Ramon reports directly to the Chief Executive and also directly advise the Chairs of the Board and of the Finance & Audit Committee; ensuring an independency from executive functions and objectivity in the work completed for the CEO or the Board.  

This role is responsible for delivering quality advice to the CEO and Board, leading the Assurance Audit & Risk functions (which incorporates Internal Audit, Provider Audit, Certification Audit, Health Payment Integrity Audit, and Risk Management) at a national level.   

Patrick will lead the transformation of our health system as we continue to deliver the intent of The Pae Ora (Healthy Futures) Act 2022. The New Zealand Health system is highly complex and adaptive system, and needs to change to ensure everyone in New Zealand can lead long and healthy lives no matter who or where they are. The use of new, emerging, and innovative digital solutions will underpin much of the Transformation.

Patrick has more than 25 years' experience leading significant transformation and change initiatives in large organisations in Singapore, Australia, and Europe. His experience includes using digital technology to deliver exceptional customer outcomes in both public and private sector. Most recently he worked on the Business Transformation programme at Inland Revenue, New Zealand.

The Transformation Office is the central point of coordination for the Transformation of the New Zealand Health system.

It sets the transformation agenda required to deliver on the health reform objectives set out in the Pae Ora (Healthy Futures) Act (2022). The Transformation Office also supports initiatives to make this vision a reality as well as programmes and projects that deliver tangible benefits.

The Enterprise Portfolio Office, which sits within the Transformation office provides visibility of all projects and programmes across Health NZ. This allows us to prioritise decisions to ensure each investment made delivers real and tangible benefits. 

Mahaki Albert is of Te Whānau-ā-Apanui, Ngāi Tūhoe, Ngāti Porou, Te Aitanga-a-Hauiti and Waikato-Tainui descent.

Mahaki has been in the role of Maiaka Whakaruruhau Tikanga | Chief of Tikanga since late-2022 and is a member of the Executive Leadership Teams for both Health NZ and Te Aka Whai Ora. His responsibilities include:

• National Chief of Tikanga, including setting tikanga expectations for Executives
• Iwi/Hapū engagement and relationship agreements
• Equity leadership
• Leadership advice and support

Mahaki was previously the Chief Executive of Whare Tiaki Hauora, a Māori NGO. Mahaki also previously held the role of Tumu Tikanga at Counties Manukau Health for 5-6 years, and has held leadership positions within community service providers, a Primary Health Organisation, and the Education sector. Mahaki is a member of various Governance groups and maintains strong engagement and relationships with Crown and Iwi entities; some of his long-standing roles he currently upholds include:

• Member of Te Kahui Wairua o Te Kiingi Maaori Tuheitia Potatau Te Wherowhero Te Tuawhitu
• Member of Te Aka Puaho Council (Māori Presbyterian Synod)
• Board Chairperson of Te Roopu Taurima O Manukau Trust

Mahaki also holds Governance roles in his local community within the education sector.

Mahaki has both BA and MA degrees and is currently a PhD candidate at Awanuiarangi.

This role is the Executive lead of Tikanga to the Chief Executive and Executive Leadership Teams of Health NZ.

The Chief of Tikanga provides:

• Tikanga advice from a national perspective, including setting tikanga expectations for Executvies
• Iwi/Hapū engagement across relationship agreements
• Equity leadership
• Leadership advice and support