Head of legal - compliance | Financial Markets Authority - New Zealand
Vanessa Simons
Head of legal - compliance | Financial Markets Authority - New Zealand
Vanessa Simons made her mark during her previous role at Meridian Energy when she led the due diligence and verification workstream of its IPO – the largest of its kind in New Zealand’s retail sector. Co-ordination across Australia, New Zealand and the US created significant logistical challenges. Simons particularly impressed sources with her design of a bespoke verification system to support its due diligence. ‘Meridian is a large and very complex business with subject matter experts embedded deeply within organisation’, she says. ‘This is problematic when verification requires sign-off at exec level. I realised that this meant that we needed a robust system for ensuring subject matter experts verified the material and were able to feed this to the exec very efficiently. I also realised this could not be achieved using the traditional process our external law firm usually implemented because that system was too linear and would create delays and bottle necks’. Moving across to lead the operational legal team of New Zealand’s financial services regulatory body comprised a significant transition, but Simons has relished the challenge, she says. ‘I enjoy the management aspects of my role the most, followed closely by the enjoyment of learning new things every day’, she says. ‘In my short time in this role I have gained enormous job satisfaction seeing my team form and now begin to “storm” and “norm”’.