Genesis seeks customer focus shift

State-owned electricity firm Genesis Energy is altering two of its senior management roles as it shifts towards a customer focus.

Its general manager of strategy and business development, a role held by Nick Thomas, is being disestablished and changed to ‘‘general manager of strategy and business technology’’.

Genesis spokesman Richard Gordon said this was to align the company’s IT work with its project management work on services such as smart metering.

‘‘We’re doing an awful lot of work in customer innovation at the moment and a lot of that has an information technology basis.’’

The current position of ‘‘general manager of people and transformation,’’ held by Sheridan Broadbent, is also replaced with a new title, ‘‘general manager of people and safety’’. Gordon said that with the IT element taken out of the role, the position would reflect an emphasis on safety, as well as human resources, property and internal communications.

The company was putting ‘‘huge effort’’ into the safety area and all staff were going through a new safety programme.

Ironically, the firm’s highest injury rate was not related to the company’s power stations, but on a staircase at one of its offices, he said.

Both new roles report to the chief executive, alongside four other senior managers. It is unknown whether the incumbents will apply.

Genesis is one of three state-run electricity generation and/or retail companies poised to be partially-floated on the NZX over the coming months.

- © Fairfax NZ News