DIRECTOR: SPK: Spark New Zealand Board changes

24 May 2016

Spark New Zealand has today announced two changes to its Board of Directors.

The Board is appointing Alison Gerry as an independent non-executive director to the board, effective 1 July 2016.

In the other change, Murray Horn has brought forward his planned retirement from the Board by several months following recent ill-health, with today's Board meeting his last.

In accordance with the Company's constitution, Alison Gerry will retire and offer herself for election at the annual meeting of shareholders to be held in November 2016.

Spark New Zealand Chairman, Mark Verbiest, said "We are pleased to be able to appoint someone of Alison's calibre. We undertook a comprehensive domestic and international search for our new Director, taking the time to ensure we found the right set of skills and experience that would complement the diverse perspectives around the table.

"Murray has served the Spark New Zealand Board of Directors with distinction for nine years now, including playing key roles in the demerger from Chorus and the significant digital repositioning of Spark in recent years, as well as chairing the Audit & Risk Committee for several years. Murray departs Spark New Zealand with the best wishes of his fellow directors, and we wish him a speedy recovery."

-ENDS-

Bio for Alison Gerry

Alison has extensive Governance experience, currently serving on the Boards of Infratil Limited, TVNZ, Vero Insurance, Kiwibank and NZX Limited, having previously served as a Director on the Boards of Queenstown Airport Corporation and Pioneer Generation Limited. Alison has indicated she is stepping down from the Boards of TVNZ and Kiwibank later this year.

Alison has more than 20 years' experience working for both corporates and for financial institutions in Auckland, Sydney, Hong Kong, Tokyo & London in trading, finance and risk roles. Alison was also a Visiting Fellow at Macquarie University in Sydney for 12 years until 2011. From 2007 Alison has been a professional company director and holds governance positions in the media, infrastructure and finance sectors. Alison has a first class honours degree in Management Studies from Waikato University and a Masters of Applied Finance from Macquarie University.

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