Brendon Green

Ko Pirongia te maunga, ko Kawhia te moana, ko Kaiewe te whenua, ko Waipapa te marae, ko Whakamarurangi te tangata, ko Ngati Hikairo te iwi. ko Tainui te waka.

Brendon Green was born and raised in Tokoroa and studied at Canterbury University to gain an honours degree in Chemical Engineering. During school holidays Brendon worked on a sheep farm in Atiamuri, pruned trees in forestry blocks around Taumaranui and later worked at the Kinleith mill to pay his way through university.

From university, Brendon was selected on the graduate program of the NZ Dairy Board where he completed a Post Graduate Diploma in Dairy Science & Technology and moved into roles initially around cost modelling dairy products and later into project development with an initiative to expand NZ’s spreadable butter production for global markets.

With the deregulation of the NZ electricity market Brendon was recruited by the newly formed Contact Energy and within their project development team ran the financial models to buiold the business case towards the approval of $400 million to fund a project at Otahuhu. Later he successfully led a team in a competitive process that included the design and construction of a $45 million cogeneration plant at Te Rapa as part of a 15 year energy supply agreement with NZ Dairy Group. The energy deal aggregated to over $300 million in contracts for the supply of steam at Te Rapa and gas & electricity at the 6 factories then owned by the co-op.

Brendon later moved to Mexico City and after an initial role as an investment banker was employed by General Electric as the account manager for new turbine sales and over a 2 year period was successful in commercialising 5 power plant projects totalling over US$500 million of orders for GE. The projects were developed with US and Spanish energy companies, Mexican industrials and the state owned power & oil companies (CFE & PEMEX).

Brendon later moved to the US with GE in Southern California with GE Energy where he worked closely with GE’s financing business GE Capital. In the USA Brendon was ranked as a “Top Talent” and was appointed as the Sales Director for GE’s Energy Rental business that covered the Western states of the US, Alaska and Hawaii. After 6 years in the US, Brendon returned with his family to NZ where he led the commercial team in the company’s Investment Group to build a portfolio of renewable energy projects for with Mighty River Power.

At the time of returning to NZ Brendon was elected to the board of Tainui Kawhia Incorporation and over the last 8 years has achieved significant outcomes for both TKI & Mighty River Power:

For Mighty River Power – developing and executing a strategy to put in place a portfolio of projects across wind, hydro, thermal and most notably geothermal projects – many of which are in partnership with Maori. In the time at MRP Brendon also managed the company’s oil and gas exploration program inclusive of drilling an offshore well in the Taranaki basin. Over recent years Brendon was appointed to an executive team to work with the Tuwharetoa Maori Trust Board around the contentious issue of Mighty River Power’s use of the bed of Lake Taupo for the Waikato hydro system. Throughout that time the two organisations came together where in December 2014 an agreement was finalised that provided for both commercial and cultural alignment between the parties.

For the initial 8 years Brendon was a board member for Tainui Kawhia, that has an asset base that includes forestry and commercial properties and is currently leading an ironsands initiative with shareholders and local iwi. More recently Brendon has been elected as the Chairman of Tainui Kawhia Incorporation.

Brendon has played key roles in a range of industries and countries where he has played instrumental roles in the commercialisation of ventures that aggregate over $2 billion in value. He brings a background “from both sides of the table” as a corporate working with Maori and as Maori working with corporates.

With the slow down in power plant development in New Zealand, Brendon established Kaitiaki Advisory Limited to provide advice to Maori organisations seeking to develop their resources.

Brendon has recently joined an investment group Webber Capital focused in the New Zealand property market and is developing an investment vehicle for Maori to participate in the market.