Governance

Managing Director & Chief Executive Officer (CEO)

Dan Huggins was appointed as Chief Executive Officer in October 2021. Prior to that he was BNZ’s Executive, Customer, Products & Services from March 2020, having returned home to New Zealand after 13 years overseas.

Dan has over 20 years of experience across a range of industries, including banking, retail, and manufacturing. Prior to BNZ, Dan was at the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) in Sydney, where he held a number of roles including Executive General Manager of Home Buying, which was accountable for CBA’s home lending portfolio. Dan has also held roles at McKinsey & Company, Fonterra, and ASB.

He holds an MBA, with distinction, from The Kellogg School of Management, and a Masters of Engineering Management from The McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science, at Northwestern University in the USA. He also holds a Bachelor of Commerce (Hons) with a major in Accounting and Finance, from the University of Auckland.

Dan is a Trustee and Chair of the BNZ Foundation and Trustee of the Springboard Trust. 

Dan was born in New Plymouth and grew up in Taranaki. He is married with two children.

Executive, Personal & Business Banking 

Anna has been our Executive for Personal & Business Banking since January 2022.

Prior to taking on this role, Anna was the GM for Partnership Banking in Central North Island, including Wellington and the South.

Anna has 18 years of experience in banking, 12 of which are in retail banking. More recently she has worked across business, commercial and agribusiness in her roles with BNZ. Previously, Anna worked at ANZ in Melbourne, where she held the role of District Manager for the Melbourne CBD and was accountable for leading the retail bank within that region. Anna also held retail banking management roles with ANZ in the Mornington Peninsula, North Shore, Northland and Otago Southland.

Before Anna worked in banking, she studied marketing at AUT and held a number of sales and retail roles.

Anna was born in Whangarei and grew up in Northland before moving to the South Island. She is married with two children and currently lives in Auckland.

Executive, Corporate & Institutional Banking

Penny is our Executive for Corporate & Institutional Banking. In this role Penny is responsible for leading the Corporate and Institutional business supporting customers across a range of industries including infrastructure, government, financial institutions, agriculture and property.   

Penny re-joined Bank of New Zealand in March 2019, having started her banking career at BNZ 19 years ago in Financial Markets. Following her start at BNZ, Penny held a variety of banking roles across Financial Markets in sales and structuring and most recently as General Manager Auckland Northland in the Commercial and Agri business at ANZ. Additionally Penny held governance roles on the ANZ Investments and UDC Finance boards. While the majority of Penny’s time has been in NZ business, she has also spent time in Australia and Asia in Financial Markets roles. 

Penny holds a Chemical and Process Engineering degree from the University of Canterbury and Masters in Applied Finance from Victoria University of Wellington. Additionally Penny has attended executive education at both Columbia Business School and MIT- Sloan School of Management. Penny is a graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors. 

Executive, Customer, Products & Services

Karna Luke (Nga Ruahine Iwi, Taranaki) has been with BNZ since 2015, most recently as General Manager Business Lending & Growth Sectors. Prior to this he held senior roles across BNZ including General Manager SME and Enterprise Partnerships.

Before joining BNZ, Karna held key senior executive roles in global Financial Services companies, including Director of Strategy with ASX listed The Trust Company, COO (Acting CEO) of Wealth and Trustee Services at Guardian Trust. He also spent five years working in multinational corporates in Asia.

Karna has built and owns his own businesses in healthcare, beverage industry and global strategic consulting leading significant strategic and transformational change for large global companies. He now focuses on giving back as an Independent Director on Ngai Tai Ki Tamaki Iwi - Whenua Ltd and Kahungungu Iwi Services.

Karna has a Bachelor Degree in Social Policy and Social Work and a Master in Business Administration from Massey University. He is qualified through FINSIA as a Chartered Banker and also completed the Advanced Strategic Management Executive Programme at the IMD in Switzerland.

Executive, Commercial Services & Responsible Business

Dean Schmidt joined BNZ in July 2018 from Genesis Energy where he was the Executive General Manager of Corporate Affairs and Transformation. Dean has also held executive roles with Television New Zealand, and senior roles with Telecom (now Spark) and the New Zealand Post Group, in Corporate Affairs, Government Relations and Community Relations. He has also held advisory roles in both Hon Helen Clark and Hon Tony Ryall’s Parliamentary Offices.

Executive, Digital, Data & Analytics

Kate joined BNZ in June 2019 as the General Manager Analytics & Insights. Prior to that she had held a number of general management roles at ASB, including the General Manager Data & Analytics, General Manager Insights & Retail Strategy, General Manager Business Performance (Wealth & Insurance), General Manager Strategy & Insights (Marketing & Online). Kate has over 20 years’ experience in banking and financial markets and holds a Bachelor of Commerce (First Class Honours) degree from the University of Auckland.

Executive, Chief Financial Officer

Peter MacGillivray was appointed Chief Financial Officer of Bank of New Zealand (BNZ) in March 2018. Prior to the appointment he held the role of Chief Operating Officer - Finance.

Peter has extensive local and international banking experience starting his career at BNZ as a graduate in 1996 and holding a variety of roles at the bank, including several senior leadership positions in Finance.
Peter’s experience includes working in the Strategic Management function of HSBC, based in London. He focused on building a strategic planning model for HSBC to optimise the company’s portfolio of businesses.

From 2009 Peter spent four years with NAB, based in Melbourne, as the Head of Business Intelligence. In this role he was responsible for leading the reporting and analytics function for NAB. Peter re-joined BNZ in December 2013, as COO – Finance.

Peter studied at Auckland University graduating with a Bachelor of Commerce and is a member of the CPA.

Executive, Transformation & Delivery

Brigid is an experienced global executive with a passion for the future of financial inclusion and harnessing an organisation’s ability to drive positive social impact. She is well known in banking circles having been the Managing Executive for the International Financial Services (IFS) division of Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA). In this role, Brigid oversaw the end to end operations for IFS businesses in China, Vietnam, Japan, and Hong Kong with governance oversight to Indonesia and the divestment of the South African business.

She was instrumental in the acquisition and growth of the South African start-up business, TymeDigital, which was acquired by CBA in 2015 and launched as the first fully digital bank in South Africa in November 2018.

Brigid has a Bachelor of Arts (Hons) from Sydney University and a Masters in International Relations from Macquarie University.

Executive, Chief People Officer

Matt was appointed Chief People Officer in November 2023. He joined BNZ in 2004 and has held senior leadership roles in People & Culture, Risk, Partnership Banking, and as Chief of Staff in the Office of the CEO. Prior to BNZ, Matt held People & Culture roles at UBS AG working in London and Europe.

Matt has 20 years of senior leadership experience across large, complex organisations in New Zealand and internationally. He holds a Bachelor of Commerce from Auckland University, majoring in Management Science & Labour Relations, and has deep experience across all generalist and specialist areas of HR.

Matt was born in Auckland, and after a period working internationally, returned home to the North Shore where he lives with his wife and two teenagers. Outside of work, Matt is regularly outclassed by his son on the golf course, enjoys cooking new recipes, and spending time with family and friends.

Executive, Chief Risk Officer

Sam Perkins joined BNZ as Chief Risk Officer, in July 2018 and leads a team of risk specialists providing BNZ with world-class risk leadership, oversight, analysis and insight.

Before joining BNZ, Sam was Global Head - Operational Risk and Compliance, Institutional Banking, at ANZ.   Here he lead the Compliance and Operational Risk management function overseeing risks arising across the institutional business.  Prior to this he had spent 3 years as the Head of Wholesale Credit in ANZ New Zealand.

He started his financial career at ASB as a customer service consultant, before moving on to roles with American Express, and Standard Bank Group in London, Moscow and Johannesburg, amassing two decades of global experience in a range of credit, compliance and risk roles.

Sam has a real focus on people leadership, customer and banker experience and challenging the status quo to continuously improve business outcomes and is known for collaboration, knowledge-sharing and supporting people to be their best.

Executive, Operational Excellence

Simon Kwan joined BNZ as Executive, Operational Excellence, in January 2022, bringing with him significant experience in the financial services industry.

Before joining BNZ, Simon was General Manager, Home Buying Process and Operations at Commonwealth Bank of Australia for five years. Prior to that, Simon held a range of operational and delivery focused roles including Executive Manager Group Operations at Westpac Australia. He has also held senior roles at Westpac New Zealand. Simon has extensive experience delivering innovation, world-class operations and process improvement for customers and colleagues.

Simon holds an Executive Masters in Business Administration from the University of Sydney and is a graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.

Executive, Chief Information Officer 

Paul joined Bank of New Zealand in September 2024 from National Australia Bank (NAB) where he has held several executive technology roles since 2021, including the acting Chief Information Officer for NAB’s Personal Bank. In other roles at NAB, Paul led the technology capabilities that drove NAB’s successful Home Ownership, Merchant and Private Health Insurance businesses.

Prior to working at NAB, Paul held Digital and Technology executive positions at the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA). This included leading the development of CBA’s digital capabilities for their lending and insurance businesses, and various roles in the Telecommunications industry in Australia, the UK and Europe.

Paul holds a Bachelor of Engineering from the University of Plymouth (UK), is a Chartered Engineer (MIET) and a Graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.

Paul is married and lives in Auckland.