Allen a strong contender to be new NZ Post boss
New Zealand Post No 2 John Allen is a strong contender to replace outgoing boss Elmar Toime in the $770,000-a-year job, according to sources close to the company.
Mr Toime said last week that he would leave New Zealand to become Royal Mail executive deputy chairman in Britain on a pay packet understood to be worth $1.5 million.
Mr Allen, letters and enterprises division chief, will act as chief executive if there is no permanent replacement by February, when Mr Toime is expected to leave.
Mr Toime said Mr Allen had his support and any outside candidate would have to be “demonstrably better”.
The New Zealand Post board would conduct a thorough search for other potential candidates in New Zealand and overseas.
Mr Allen earlier this year took over the heavily criticised New Zealand Post international business Transend.
An “incisive strategist” and former lawyer, Mr Allen was also someone who can talk to people at all levels, the sources said.
While Mr Allen is the official head of Transend, the Transend business has been recently managed by former senior diplomat Maarten Wevers.
Mr Allen runs the core postal business with more than 4000 staff. He is seen as the best possible replacement for Mr Toime within the group.
The sources said that Mr Allen was well respected and there would be no-one else within New Zealand Post who would come close to having his experience.
Mr Wevers is also highly respected, with strong political skills. But he is a relative newcomer to the post business and it would be a surprise if he leap-frogged Mr Allen.
Mr Toime has been chief executive of the near $1 billion a year New Zealand Post for 10 years and joined the company five years before that.
New Zealand Post made almost $22 million dollars in the past year, but its commercial success under Mr Toime has been overshadowed recently by troubles at international offshoot Transend.
A damning Audit Office inquiry out this month showed top executives at Transend ran up big bills for overseas trips, stayed in top hotels and wined and dined each other on company credit cards. The revelations led opposition MPs to call for Mr Toime, as the man with overall responsibility for Transend, to resign.
Mr Toime’s departure comes while the Government is still trying to fill another key role with a replacement for former Treasury secretary Allan Bollard, now Reserve Bank governor.
Dr Bollard’s appointment was announced four months ago, though State Services Commissioner Michael Wintringham said then that it was expected to take “some time”.
John Whitehead, presently acting Treasury secretary, is seen as a contender for the top job.
Mr Toime replaced former chief executive Australian Harvey Parker, who was brought in to shake-up the business, so a complete outsider is possible.
Mr Parker started by closing more than 400 post offices and laying off 560 staff after the then-Labour government brought in a private sector board and a new style of management for the group which was corporatised in 1987.
