General managers
Plunket has seven general managers and a chief operating officer that report to the chief executive, all based in the national office in Wellington.
Jenny Prince
Chief Executive Officer
Jenny has been part of the Plunket family for 20 years. She started as a volunteer member when her children were young and became a Plunket Nurse working in South Auckland for a number of years before taking up the role of Area Manager in Papakura and Franklin. In 2000 she headed up a national project looking at governance and operations and then went on to be Operations Manager in Counties Manukau. She was appointed General Manager of Operations in 2006.
A registered general and obstetric nurse, she has qualifications in education, psychology and business management. Jenny’s work history has taken her from tutor sister at Waikato Hospital School of nursing to village clinic nurse in Tonga to working in the South Auckland community with physically disabled children. She understands the community health environment today, partly through her voluntary involvement with Plunket and her children’s activities and working with community health organisations in South Auckland.
Angela Baldwin
Chief Operating Officer
Angela began her association with Plunket as a district Plunket nurse in Rotorua. She has held many roles in the organisation over the last 30 years, including Otago area manager and research nurse. Angela was appointed to the General Manager Clinical Services role in 2000 and more recently to Chief Operating Officer in 2009. She is also a registered nurse and has 35 years of varied community nursing experience.
Angela was a founding member of the New Zealand Breastfeeding Authority and is currently a member of the Australia/New Zealand National Community Child Health Council, the Infant Nutrition Advisory Group, New Zealand Nurses Organisation, College of Nurses Aotearoa (NZ) Inc, Nurse Executives forum and the Plunket Society Ethics Committee.
Gerald Ross
General Manager, Finance and Information Systems
Gerald joined Plunket in June 2007 after many years in private enterprise which had taken him to several parts of the globe including nearly three years in Seoul. Gerald’s role of Chief Financial Officer sees him responsible for leading Plunket’s finance, centralised accounting (the team that supports the volunteer treasurers), legal, business services and information communications technology teams.
Mark Johnston
General Manager, Funding, Marketing and Communications
Mark is a displaced Scotsman, living with a gorgeous English woman and three fabulous Kiwi kids on top of a mountain (well a prominent hill according to Wikipedia) in the windiest city in the world.
Mark has managed to accumulate over 20 years worth or sales and marketing experience. He has crammed stints in oil and gas, consumer electronics and music, government, gaming entertainment, financial services, communications services and customer loyalty before being persuaded to jump into the not-for profit world with Plunket in April 2009.
Stephanie Shennan
General Manager, Service Delivery
Stephanie is a born and bred ‘Westie’ which is where her initial involvement with Plunket began, first as a client of the service and then as a Plunket Nurse. Since then she has worked as a Clinical Leader and then as Area Manager in Waitemata, Auckland City and also a few months in Canterbury. Although it has been 17 years since she started working for Plunket she has not lost her passion for the organisation and enjoys supporting staff and volunteers across the country as they strive to deliver services and support which exceeds expectations.
The Service Delivery General Manager role has a national overview of all the services and supports provided by Plunket.
Sonya Rimene
General Manager, Maori Health
Sonya Rimene is of Rangitaane, Kahungunu, Te Arawa and Kai Tahu descent. Sonya has worked in policy and operational policy across a range of government departments for over the last 15 years (Social Policy Agency, Ministry of Social Development, Ministry of Education, Corrections).
Since 2003, Sonya held the role of Kaihautu in the Ministry of Women's Affairs and has strong relationships with Iwi/Māori across Aotearoa. She is looking forward to working in a non-government organisation and is passionate to develop services that empower whānau to achieve their aspirations.
Liz Barton
General Manager, People & Capability
Liz is originally from the UK, but having made the journey to New Zealand back in 2000, now considers herself an honorary kiwi. In the UK her career developed from generalist HR roles, into more specialist Organisation Development management roles, predominantly within the UK's retail sector. She moved originally to Christchurch where she worked in a number of roles including GM HR of a contracting company, and as partner in a consulting firm where her clients were many and varied, and included both the Health and Education sectors.
Since joining Plunket after a move to Wellington, Liz has worked with her team to develop some unique and innovative frameworks and work programmes across the broad range of Organisation and People capability development. Liz is passionate about harnessing the capability of organisations towards a common set of goals and values.
Craig LeQuesne
General Manager Information Communications and Technology
