Who we are

Built by leaders who’ve had to deliver.

Our story.

We’ve spent our careers on both ends of a decision: making them at the top table, and being accountable for delivering them on the ground.

What we learned is that results come from the whole organisation working as one system. Direction, governance, people, processes and systems all have to line up for a decision to be executed, for outcomes to land and for performance to last. When they don’t, good people carry the gap by hand, and the organisation pays for it in time, money and trust.

We started Tuumata in 2023 to take responsibility for that gap. We work alongside your leaders and teams, respect the people and challenge the system, and step in to lead when the change needs it.

We measure our work twice: by the value it creates for the organisation and the communities it serves, and by the capability it leaves in your people. Success is what still holds after we’ve gone.

What we do Why decisions don’t deliver

Between us

30+

years between us, across public and private sectors

700+

people, teams, contractors and suppliers led

90%+

capital programme delivery, held through major change

10+

transformations led, from set-up to steady state

$1.5b

development taken from inception to operational readiness

300+

jobs created through broader outcomes, and multiple community businesses

Greer Golding

Director and Principal

Greer makes decisions hold: at the board table, under regulatory scrutiny, and in the systems people use every day.

At Tuumata she sets out what delivery will take, then steps in to run it when a team needs leadership. Her test for any decision: who runs this the Monday after it’s approved?

She is an admitted Barrister and Solicitor of the High Court of New Zealand, and has spent more than a decade leading change in local government, water services, council-owned investment companies and, through Tuumata, private businesses.

She led a council’s governance function. Working with every manager and 32 elected members, she changed how decisions were prepared and delegated, so decisions were considered and effective. She has reviewed bylaws and enforced them, directing litigation with external counsel. She led the replacement of the enforcement system behind six regulatory regimes, bringing five business teams and two vendors with her. It went live on its fixed date, within budget, and still runs.

She has led teams through uncertainty, including governance, regulatory and investigations teams, often in roles created during restructures. She promotes her people and turns performance around.

In water services, she stepped in as interim Head of Business Planning and Performance, took the annual report through audit to adoption and advised the executive on qualification risk. She then set the change strategy for the transition to a new entity, bringing six concurrent programmes into one plan. She established and ran investment governance over its capital programme of about $300 million a year, cleared stalled investment decisions, and told the executive plainly where delivery was incomplete. She turned around an official information function under Ombudsman scrutiny; its procedures are still in use.

As legal counsel to a listed council-controlled investment company, she advised the board on legal, compliance and regulatory risk. She led a health and safety investigation across multiple entities and advised directors on their next steps. She reads a decision for what it commits you to as well as what it promises.

Qualifications: LLB, BCom
Memberships: Admitted as a Barrister and Solicitor of the High Court of New Zealand; Institute of Directors

Cedric Crow

Director and Principal

Cedric is an enterprise executive who makes public money go further: in the programme, in the contract, and in the community it’s meant to serve.

He sees strategy through the eyes of the people expected to deliver it, and the systems that need to carry it. Strategy has to work at the front line, where decisions land.

He has led transformation from executive leadership teams in local government, a council-controlled organisation and the commercial arm of Waikato-Tainui, keeping performance up while the change happens. He has led groups of more than 150 staff and 300 contractors, held accountability for multi-billion-dollar asset portfolios, and advised elected members on investment, performance and risk. In his most recent role, his group had the highest staff engagement and lowest turnover in the organisation.

In three organisations he has lifted capital programme delivery from around 50 percent to between 90 and 100 percent. The number is the easy part to see. What made it stick was transforming the wider organisation around it.

As Programme Director on the Ruakura Superhub, Tainui Group Holdings’ $1.5 billion precinct of national significance, he set the infrastructure strategy, investment sequencing and governance across every workstream, and led the programme’s relationships with Crown investors and councils. He originated Ruakura Energy, an iwi-owned electricity distribution business, and took it from idea to approval to build.

On a council executive leadership team, he led the organisation’s largest group and set the direction for a new capital delivery model that tripled annual delivery while everyday services met or exceeded their targets. When a 21-year transport maintenance contract ended, he led the decision to bring it in house with a local supplier model, and service didn’t drop.

He started through a civil engineering cadetship and spent eight years with tier-one contractors, rising to lead a 150-person division on roads of national significance, airport runways and racetracks. He knows what it takes to make a job pay, and he still judges a plan by whether the people carrying it can deliver it.

Qualifications: BEngTech (Civil), NZDE, NZDEP, DipIAM, CPP
Memberships: Chartered Member, Institute of Directors; Chartered Member, Engineering New Zealand; Qualified Industry Assessor (Infrastructure)

Who we’ve worked with

From the board table to the front line.

We’ve worked at every stage of a decision. Between us we’ve led every layer of it, and we build the system so the outcome gets delivered.

The board table
Elected members Boards and directors Shareholders and owners Trustees
The executive
Chief executives Managing directors Business owners Leadership teams Steering committees
The functions
Legal Regulatory and compliance Licensing and enforcement Capital delivery Operations Planning and performance
The front line
Managers and team leaders Frontline and regulatory staff Site crews Contractors and suppliers

Across the organisation

The plans, rules and systems that tie every layer together.

Transformation and change
Operating models and how value is delivered
Key institutional and governing documents
Procurement
Asset stewardship

Alongside

Iwi and mana whenua Joint venture partners Funders Regulators Customers Community boards and local communities

Ngaa Uara

What we stand for.

Tuumata

We plan for the people who come next.

Our name is inspired by one Waikato-Tainui interpretation of the word: looking beyond the immediate horizon to the generations who follow. We weigh every recommendation by what it leaves behind.

Tiro Whaanui

The issue you called about is rarely the whole of it.

We look at the whole line, from the decision to the people carrying it out, before we recommend anything.

Whakamana

We don’t look for someone to blame.

We shape change with your people, not to them. Honest answers only come when people aren’t afraid of the outcome.

Pono

You hear the difficult finding early.

We ask what a decision will take before it’s made, and we tell you what we find while there’s still time to act.

Tell us what has to change.

Talk to Greer and Cedric

kiaora@tuumataadvisory.co.nz