Gerard Watt

Senior operations leader with 21+ years’ experience driving operational excellence, transformation, and cultural change in complex, high-risk environments. Expert in leading multi-disciplinary teams, strengthening capability, and embedding rigorous safety, risk, compliance, and regulatory standards. Proven record of delivering structural change and reshaping business models through centralisation, regionalisation, outsourcing, and brand repositioning. Skilled in streamlining operations by removing duplication, negotiating contracts, setting SLAs, and embedding sustainable efficiencies that improve performance, safety, and engagement. Recognised for inspiring and developing people, fostering high-performance cultures, and achieving strong results under pressure.

Leadership

• Recognised people-first leader – balances compassion with accountability; trusted for building engaged, high-performing teams.
• Change and transformation – led large-scale sales transformation (400+ staff), succession planning, and cultural change initiatives.
• Crisis leadership – successfully led teams and operations through major disruptions, including the Christchurch and Wellington earthquakes and the COVID-19 pandemic. Maintained safety, continuity, and morale in high-risk environments.
• Coaching and development – embed personalised development plans, leadership coaching, and succession pipelines. Achieved highest scores in Employee NPS.
• Strategic and resilient – able to cut through complexity, inspire confidence, and align people to strategy in challenging environments.

Operational Excellence & HSSE Leadership

• Implemented national SOPs for mortuary operations, embedding safety, regulatory compliance, and infection-control standards across multiple high-risk sites.
• Delivered major asset management and facility upgrade programmes, reducing operational risk, ensuring regulatory compliance, and improving reliability and service quality.
• Championed a people-first safety culture, embedding accountability, engagement, and proactive risk management in line with industry and legislative requirements.

Business Transformation & Capability Building

• Unified multiple brands into a single high-performance operation, streamlining processes, standardising systems, and improving efficiency.
• Led strategic outsourcing of design services, achieving major cost savings, improved service levels, and trans-Tasman efficiencies, while reinvesting in local creative capability.
• Established a centralised creative services hub for 26 brands, delivering consistent quality and significant savings.

Stakeholder Engagement & External Representation

• Built strong partnerships with industry bodies, regulators, and community stakeholders to drive operational outcomes and protect organisational reputation.
• Represented organisations in media, public forums, and crisis situations, ensuring consistent, credible communication.

Commercial & Cultural Transformation

• Repositioned declining brands to achieve market-leading performance, winning national awards and increasing revenue.
• Delivered cultural change programmes that strengthened community connection, improved staff engagement, and created high-performance environments.

• Project Management Professional (PMP) – Project Management Institute (PMI)
• Governance Training – Institute of Directors (IoD)
• Executive Coaching and Leadership – Institute of Executive Coaching and Leadership (IECL)