Roderick Deane

Deane worked at the Reserve Bank of New Zealand, rapidly becoming Chief Economist, then Deputy Governor in 1982. During this period, Deane tended to clash with Prime Minister and Finance Minister Robert Muldoon,[2] arguing for more economic liberalisation and sounder economic policies, although Deane described his personal relationship with Muldoon as "cordial" and "civil". Muldoon twice appointed a Governor to the Reserve Bank in preference to Deane.

Deane served as Alternate Executive Director of the International Monetary Fund from 1974 to 1976. While at the Reserve Bank, Deane published numerous papers on monetary, exchange-rate, and fiscal policy, as well as in the fields of international economics. He led a research-team which developed New Zealand's first macroeconometric model and published many papers in this area. He authored and edited a range of books on monetary policy and financial-sector matters, the external sector and foreign investment. Deane later became the inaugural winner of the NZIER Qantas "Economist of the Year" Award.

In 1984, with the election of the Fourth Labour government, Deane led those elements within the Reserve Bank calling for a devaluation of the New Zealand dollar. Speculation on international markets that the incoming New Zealand government would devalue the currency led to the Reserve Bank needing to defend the fixed currency in the markets, causing losses of hundreds of millions of dollars. The defeated Prime Minister, Muldoon, refused to devalue the currency; a constitutional crisis ensued, during which the incoming Government directed Muldoon to devalue. During the crisis, Deane took the unprecedented step of closing the New Zealand currency to international trading pending settlement of the dispute.

In 1986 Deane became Chairman of the State Services Commission, effectively the head of New Zealand's public service. Along with Minister of Finance Roger Douglas, Deane served as the principal architect of state-sector reform and corporatisation of New Zealand's State-Owned Enterprises. He also oversaw a range of other reforms to the public sector, including changes in the wage determination processes to liberalise these, the re-organization of the public service to reduce substantially the number of public servants and to improve the efficiency of many government departments, and changes designed to improve the clarity of objectives and the enhancement of accountabilities within the public sector.[2]

In 1986–87 he was called on to investigate the Māori Loan Affair.

In 1987 Deane became Chief Executive of New Zealand's then-largest state-owned enterprise, the Electricity Corporation of New Zealand (ECNZ), often known as Electricorp.[2] Don Hunn succeeded Deane as State Services Commissioner.

In November 1992, following the privatisation of Telecom as New Zealand's largest listed company, Deane became Chief Executive of the new entity.[2] He held this role until his retirement on 1 October 1999, when he became the non-executive Chairman of Telecom.[3] In the "Top 200 Corporate Awards", Deane became CEO of the Year in 1994, CEO of the Decade in 1999[4] and later Chairman of the Year.

Deane also served as Chairman of ANZ National Bank from 1999 and for many years as a Director of the ANZ Banking Group in Melbourne.[5] He chaired the Board of the National Museum of New Zealand, Te Papa Tongarewa from 2000,[6] which encompasses what was previously the National Art Gallery. He formed the City Gallery Wellington Foundation and functioned for many years as its chairman during the directorship of Paula Savage. In 2006 Deane announced his resignation from these positions to provide time to pursue other interests which he had been developing for some years.[7] In the case of Telecom, the decision to resign followed particularly the Government's decision to force Telecom to unbundle the local loop, a decision with which he said he fundamentally disagreed.