Several appointments to new roles were made at a Whakatāne District Council meeting on Thursday, in the wake of the council’s promotion of former general manager of strategy and transformation manager Steven Perdia to chief executive .

Council decisions were needed to appoint Mr Perdia to positions in two organisations previously held by former chief executive Steph O’Sullivan.

Firstly, he was appointed as a director of limited company Bay of Plenty Local Authority Shared Services (BOPLASS).

BOPLASS allows member councils to reduce costs and improve efficiency through joint procurement and sharing of services, such as insurance and software.

He was also appointed as council observer to the limited partnership board of Te Rāhui Herenga Waka Whakatāne. As one of the four partners of the project, the council has an independent appointed director, whose role is to direct the project toward successful construction and operation. This role is not to make decisions in the interests of specific shareholders.

Each partner organisation is also able to appoint an observer to board meetings. The observer does not have any voting rights but reports back to the council.

Along with the new chief executive, the council has also appointed Mayor Victor Luca as an alternate observer. This is a new role to make sure there is an observer at meetings in case Mr Perdia is not available to attend.

As chief executive, Mr Perdia has had to step back from his role as one of two local recovery managers appointed to the Bay of Plenty Civil Defence Emergency Management Group. The role is to oversee the recovery process after a major natural hazard event.

The Whakatāne council’s other appointee to the role is Leny Woolsey who is currently acting in the general manager position Mr Perdia left vacant.

Ms Woolsey will remain as local recovery manager and will be joined by senior strategic policy analyst Sarah Ellis, who joined the council in January.

Among her experience and qualifications for the role, Ms Ellis lived in Tokyo during the 2011 Tohoku earthquake, and volunteered in the clean-up efforts in Ishinomaki, a coastal town devastated by the tsunami.

In his first chief executive’s report to council, Mr Perdia discussed several vacancies in the executive management team.

These include his former role as well as chief financial officer and general manager of business partnering recently vacated by Gary Connolly and Kaihautū - Strategic Māori Partnerships recently vacated by Paul Warbrick.

Mr Perdia said the vacancies provided an opportunity to rethink the makeup of the executive team and is currently gathering feedback from staff on a draft proposal that he has shared with the chief executive performance committee.

He expects to begin recruitment advertising for the positions toward the end of November.