Board of Directors

Open Polytechnic employs a wide range of learning and teaching experts who provide academic and learning support to our distance learners.

We also use contractors, mostly off campus, who are subject matter experts in their fields who provide academic support and marking services. 

As a specialist provider of open flexible distance learning, we also employ highly skilled courseware design and development, and education technology professionals, administration and customer support staff, as well as library and learning centre staff who are all focused on helping Open Polytechnic learners achieve their educational goals. 

Find out more about our workforce by selecting an area below.

We have been approved to provide:

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For further information on the Creative and Media Services contract, please visit the New Zealand Government Procurement page.

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• Board of Directors
  • Vaughan Renner

    Board of Director Appointment - Chairperson

    Open Polytechnic

    Read more about Vaughan Renner

    Vaughan is a director and consultant with extensive board experience, and currently serves on a number of public sector, private sector and not-for-profit boards.

    He is the president of Business New Zealand and Business Central, chair of the New Zealand Standards Approval Board, and director of a number of privately held companies.

    Vaughan has had a 20-year executive career. including senior leadership and general management positions in the automotive sector. He holds an MBA, BE Chem and BSc (chemistry).

  • 

    Breccan McLeod-Lundy

    Board of Director Appointment

    Open Polytechnic

    Read more about Breccan McLeod-Lundy

    Breccan is CEO and director of Ackama, a software development company with offices in Wellington, Auckland and Melbourne. He is a Director of PledgeMe and co-chair of NZRise. He believes in applying pragmatic solutions to make lives better. He has worked closely with organisations ranging from start-ups with global growth aspirations through to NGOs delivering aid programmes into the Asia Pacific region.

    Breccan was a finalist for EY Entrepreneur of the Year NZ in 2018 and Ackama is a TIN 200 company. He is a chartered member of the Institute of Directors, holds a BA(Hons) in philosophy, and a Postgraduate Diploma in Business Administration.

  • 

    Karen Vaughan

    Board of Director Appointment

    Open Polytechnic

    Read more about Karen Vaughan

    Dr Karen Vaughan is an education and disputes resolution consultant. Over the past 20 years, her cross-field research and thought leadership have been influential in initiatives such as Vocational Pathways, assessment systems for on-job learning, and STAR, and internationally in career guidance and practice-based learning. More recently her work has focused on learning analytics to support building and construction apprentices, a ‘vocational thresholds’ model of capability, and restorative justice.

    Karen has substantial governance experience and is currently a board member of Work-Integrated Learning New Zealand and community representative to the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists.

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    Murray Strong

    Board of Director Appointment

    Open Polytechnic

    Read more about Murray Strong

    Murray has held a variety of Crown-appointed senior roles over the last 15 years, including Crown Commissioner at WITT and Unitec and Crown manager at Tai Poutini. He previously held corporate roles with Air New Zealand and worked with a range of clients across New Zealand.

    Prior to his taking up the role of executive director of NZIST, then chair of Te Pūkenga, Murray was the chair of NZQA.

    Murray chaired large post-earthquake capital projects in Christchurch, where he lives, and has worked in governance and senior management roles across the education, aviation, professional services, tourism and sport sectors.

    He currently holds governance and advisory roles in the infrastructure sector in Wellington, overseeing a $34 billion asset portfolio, and chairs the Canterbury Multi-Use Arena delivery company, the Southern Lakes Events Investment Panel and the Centre of Digital Excellence in Dunedin.

  • Thérèse Arseneau

    Board of Director Appointment

    Open Polytechnic

    Read more about Thérèse Arseneau

    Dr Thérèse Arseneau has extensive governance experience and is currently chair of ChristchurchNZ Ltd, board chair of Ara Institute of Canterbury, a director of J Ballantyne & Co Ltd and chair of the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra. She previously chaired the boards of Regenerate Christchurch and Enterprise North Canterbury.

    Thérèse has over 30 years’ experience in the tertiary education sector, including as a university lecturer in Canada and New Zealand, and is currently an adjunct senior fellow in political science at the University of Canterbury. She holds a doctorate from the University of Oxford and in 2011 was a recipient of the University of Canterbury Teaching Award for excellence in teaching

  • Xiao Peng (Jerry) He

    Board of Director Appointment

    Open Polytechnic

    Read more about Xiao Peng (Jerry) He

    Jerry is founder and director of Olivia Premium Food, a company that aims to provide 100% New Zealand-made products to children all over the world at reasonable prices. He is the former deputy convenor of the Small Business Development Group, which advises the New Zealand government on issues affecting small-to-medium enterprises and helps government agencies communicate with them.

    As the chair of the New Zealand Green Industry Association, Jerry offers regular trade updates and speaks with China inspection and quarantine officials of Chinese Customs. He was the founding chair of Singapore-based Asia Pacific Micro-Small-to-Medium-Enterprise (MSME) Trade Coalition, set up to help MSMEs to trade more across borders, facilitate internationalisation through more permissible trade policies and serve as a data repository for the common challenges faced by Asian MSMEs.

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