New Leadership for Stonewood Homes

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10 February 2015

New Leadership for Stonewood Homes

A major coup for one of New Zealand’s largest homebuilders with today’s announcement of new leadership for the business.

Stonewood Homes is a nationwide company that was established in 1987 by Brent and Sue Mettrick and since then has built close to 6000 homes around New Zealand. The family owned company has a network of franchises throughout New Zealand with a support office based in Christchurch.

Jim Boult ONZM has been appointed as Chairman of the Board and Warwick Isaacs as Chief Executive. Founder Brent Mettrick will continue as an Executive Director. The new appointments follow the recent appointment of Neil Cochrane as Chief Financial Officer.

Jim Boult is a highly regarded leader who is also a Director of Hawkins Group, Real Journeys, Civil Aviation Authority, Signal Management and Chairman of the Tourism Growth Partnership. He also Chairs the Child Cancer Foundation. Mr Boult is a former Director and Chief Executive of Christchurch International Airport Limited. This year he received a New Year’s Honour for his services to tourism and the community.

Warwick Isaacs is the current Director of the Central City Development Unit [CCDU] of Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority [CERA]. He also holds the role of Deputy CE Implementation for CERA.

In this role he has been leading $2 billion of anchor projects and has helped steer CCDU and Christchurch through the many challenges the city has faced post the devastating earthquakes. He has also overseen the $1.8billion horizontal infrastructure rebuild and operations. He is also the former Chief Executive of Timaru District Council.

Neil Cochrane is an experienced Chief Financial Officer having held a similar role at Christchurch International Airport.

Brent Mettrick says each of these people are highly regarded in their fields and will add huge value to Stonewood and attracting people of this calibre can be taken as a big sign of confidence in the company’s future.

Jim Boult who took up his role late last year, says Stonewood has built close to 6000 homes for Kiwis around the country since it was established in more than 25 years ago.

“Like many in the industry, particularly since the earthquakes in Christchurch, this growth has come with some challenges. Together with a great group of staff and franchisees, we’re all focused on building a company that is committed to delivering on its promises and helping people live the Kiwi lifestyle in high standard and innovative new homes.”

“The appointment of Warwick as Chief Executive is very much a part of our plan to have great people building great homes for great customers. I hold Warwick in high regard and in particular, his personal values, leadership style and ability to deal with complex challenges will add huge value to Stonewood and ultimately to our customers who are our top priority.”

“Stonewood is a company that has been forward thinking and innovative over the years and will continue to be whilst making sure that it has the best business practices in place to deliver for customers. I am truly delighted to be the Chair and help guide the company in its future direction.”

Warwick Isaacs says it was a big decision for him at a personal level to leave his current role having been involved since the first days after the earthquakes. “The time is right for me to take up another new challenge but still retain my strong links with the community.”

“This is a national role with a company that has a long history in home building. I’ve been impressed with Brent’s total commitment to bringing together and building a team of people that are all focused on finding new and innovative ways to do what they do even better.”

Brent Mettrick says Stonewood will be making more new appointments both at a governance level and within the business over the coming months, which will all be designed to continue to build a great company that builds great homes.

“With the new leadership structure in place along with significant investment in refining build processes and developing new plan ranges, Stonewood expects to continue to grow its network and penetration into all markets.”

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