Mike Collins, who moved from an executive leadership role at the Southern District Health Board, was welcomed into the role yesterday morning with a mihi whakatau, a traditional Maori welcome, by members and staff of the two organisations.
Business South has been created by the merger of the Otago Southland Employers’ Association and the Otago Chamber of Commerce.
For the first few weeks, Mr Collins will be splitting his time between the two organisations.
"It is just the right thing to do, just to make sure I am present in both places and to make sure I have equal amount of time with the staff," he said.
Before starting in the role, Mr Collins had informal meetings with various staff members across the separate entities.
"I probably met about 95% of the staff before today," Mr Collins said.
The merger board was working through the "nuts and bolts" of bringing the two organisations together, with a target date of October.
"We will be working through what the brand and name will be, where the location of services will be and working out the employment agreements because everyone is employed by two separate entities at the moment," he said.
At an organisation level, Mr Collins would be working to understand what having a partnership with BusinessNZ and New Zealand Chambers of Commerce would look like.
"There is already great services between the two but now it is about packaging them up and offering them to our members so they get everything rather than being signed up with one organisation and not the other," he said.
"It is going to be busy but it is also going to be exciting, I’m all ears about what the opportunities are," he said
