Nigel is the general manager of risk and assurance at Watercare.

Watercare provides water and wastewater services to 1.7 million people in Auckland. It has 1200 staff, an annual revenue of $970 million, an asset base of over $16 billion, and a capital programme exceeding $1 billion per year. It’s a complex business facing many challenges including transitioning to the government’s new Local Water Done Well policy and the impacts of climate change. Nigel ensures these challenges are understood at the executive level and managed across the business.

Nigel strategically manages the company’s risks, focusing on service quality, business continuity, and incident preparedness. As the senior incident controller, he leads responses to major incidents, including extreme weather events and the Orakei Main Sewer failure in 2023.

Nigel is a former chair of RiskNZ and was named the RiskNZ risk professional of the year in 2021 for his industry-leading work on using risk to build strategic advantage and future state preparedness in large organisations. He is also the technical author of PAS 60518 (Developing and implementing enterprise

risk and resilience management in utilities), published by the International Standards Organisation (ISO).

Nigel is a qualified accountant with extensive financial and governance experience including chief financial officer roles in New Zealand and United Kingdom, and as a member of the Audit and Risk Committee for the Institute of Risk Management. Nigel was recently appointed as a board member for Toi Ora Live Art Trust.