Guest Speaker: Simon Craddick, CEO Port Taranaki
Introduced by : David Gibson
Simon is an Engineering graduate from Canterbury University who was attracted to apply for the Port Taranaki CEO position because he's a keen wind/surfer, has a young family and saw it as a great location to bring up his family.
He has come from Auckland where he worked at Fisher and Pakyl Healthcare, Deloittes, Air New Zealand and as an aviation consultant.
As the CEO he is in charge of a staff of 130, 9 berths and must deliver an $8M annual dividend to the port owner (Taranaki Regional Council)
The port has an turnover of $1.5 Billion. 90% is in Oil and Gas market the remainder mainly in logs, agrifeeds, fertilizer and bitumen.
The challenge for the port in future is the transitioning of the economy away from reliance on Oil and Gas to cleaner energy such as wind power, hydrogen etc and what that means for the port trade.
He did mention however that this would likely take longer than current predictions.
Other challenges include being a responsible environmental company that must do better in coping with suspended solids at the port and improving productivity.
He listed annual sponsorship of $75K for Foodbank, Triathlon events and other community organisations as being important ongoing commitments to the community.
Thanked by Owen McCluggage.
