Vic Crone appointed Callaghan CEO

Unsuccessful Auckland mayoral candidate Vic Crone has been appointed to head government growth agency Callaghan Innovation whose performance was recently criticised in a review.

Callaghan Innovation chairwoman Sue Suckling said the appointment of Ms Crone, who was formerly managing director of Xero before she polled second in the mayoralty behind Phil Goff, followed a highly competitive recruitment process.

“Vic brings a track record of leading and implementing organisational strategy to achieve challenging outcomes, through a customer-driven approach and building the strong organisational culture necessary to deliver results,” she said.

The inaugural chief executive Mary Quin resigned in July last year.

Ms Crone’s technology experience follows executive roles at Xero, Chorus and Telecom NZ and she’s a director of the boards of a number of private tech companies.

A recent review of the government’s innovation commercialisation agency which was formed three and half years ago found it had weak management and was struggling internally to complete a strategy guiding how it offers services to companies with high-value, high-tech commercial ideas.

The agency appeared to be caught mid-steam between two different operating models, the review by former public sector leader Paula Rebstock said.

Ms Suckling refused an interview on the review but released an emailed statement saying the Performance Improvement Framework report had been undertaken a year ago and was “immensely useful," highlighting what work still needed to be done and what progress had been made.

She said significant progress had since been made in the key areas identified in the review including “further crystallisation of an operating model focussed around sectors impact, and putting customers at the heart of what we do.”

Hemi Rolleston, who has been interim chief executive since Quin left, has been appointed to a new role of general manager sectors, Māori economy and programmes. He was previously Callaghan Innovation’s general manager Māori economy.

Ms Crone takes up the chief executive role on February 28.