Mr Thompson chaired an often turbulent Aurora board for 10 years, a period over which the business was fundamentally transformed.
During his tenure, the lines company spent hundreds of millions of dollars updating degraded infrastructure and moved its focus towards delivering high-quality electricity across the Otago region.
Dunedin City Holdings Ltd chairman Tim Loan said Mr Thompson's contribution to Aurora, the wider Dunedin City Council group and to the communities Aurora serves had been exceptional.
‘‘Steve has steered Aurora through one of the most consequential transitions of any infrastructure business in New Zealand.
‘‘He inherited a network and an organisation under intense scrutiny and, over a decade, has overseen its rebuild — physically, operationally, financially and culturally.
‘‘The Aurora of 2026 is a profoundly different company to the Aurora of 2016, and Steve's leadership is at the heart of that change.’’
In 2017, Aurora separated from Delta Utility Services establishing itself as a standalone, independently governed and managed network business.
In March 2020, Aurora was ordered by the High Court to pay nearly $5 million in penalties for excessive power outages and failing to meet network quality standards. Further penalties were issued in 2022, after the inspector found some of the tasks were not yet complete.
In 2024, a proposal to privatise Aurora Energy was voted down by the DCC amid public uproar. — Allied Media
