About Us

BOPLASS LTD is a company registered at the companies’ office and is a Council Controlled Organisation with nine council shareholders each council having one share valued at $1000. The nine Chief Executives make up the board of directors and up to three additional directors can be appointed for their commercial or technical skills.

The current Directors and Shareholding Councils are:

While the company is set up to work principally with Councils in the Bay of Plenty/Gisborne Region its constitution provides for it to work with other councils where there is benefit to the BOP councils through collaboration.

THE TEAM

Ross Carter, Chief Executive Officer - was formerly the Group Manager; Corporate and Customer for Western Bay of Plenty District Council with responsibility for Libraries, Customer Services, Information Technology, Information Management, GIS and Council Services. His business experience includes time as an Employment Relations Consultant and General Manager, and he has also been involved in other start-up initiatives. He has had 19 years experience in various local government roles and has an understanding of the contribution that shared services can bring to councils and their ratepayers.
Stephen Boyle, Business Development Manager - is responsible for identifying procurement opportunities, managing projects and liaising with councils to identify shared service opportunities. Stephen brings to BOPLASS a strong work history in corporate business management, with over ten years experience within innovative ICT organisations. This experience has involved a wide range of senior roles and responsibilities including business establishment, business development, regional management and national sales management. Prior to joining BOPLASS Stephen had most recently worked for Fuji Xerox as Regional Manager, with responsibility for the upper North Island operations. He has also held various strategic management roles with Telecom NZ. Stephen is passionate about his role and BOPLASS’ commitment to assisting councils. He sees BOPLASS as an enabler that adds true incremental value in helping the councils to provide improved services and improved business efficiencies.
Grant Probert, IT Manager (acting) - responsible for the implementation and support of shared services as outlined in the BOPLASS Information Services Strategic Plan (ISSP). Grant comes to BOPLASS having had 17 years' experience in the IT industry, which includes database programming, system programming, infrastruture development, global support and IT management. Grant is on assignment from the Bay of Plenty Regional Council (BOPRC), where he has been the IT Manager for the past seven years.  During his time at BOPRC, Grant has been involved with several major collaborative IT undertakings, including the implementation of a high-speed fibre network and the development of a video conferencing service. Prior to arriving at BOPRC, Grant spent 7 years in the UK working for Reuters where his work included developing the IT infrastruture for Factiva, a joint venture between Reuters and Dow Jones, and managing the organisation's IT needs across Europe, Middle East and Asia-Pacific regions.  From this work, Grant brings experience and understanding in enabling shared services and collaboration between dispersed organisations.
Kathryn Wilson, Executive Assistant (part-time) - comes to BOPLASS having gained a good deal of council experience working at Western Bay of Plenty District Council.  Amongst other duties, she had time in various roles:  PA to the Director of Information Services, staff trainer in Electronic Document Management Systems and process auditor, then coordinating the pilot for the EDMS back-capture project.  Previously to this, Kat spent a decade in the UK, the majority of which was spent as PA to the Finance Director for Project Management / Interior Design firm "London Town Plc".

The Greater Team - Over 90 staff from various councils are currently working in BOPLASS organised activity groups to facilitate and create opportunities to develop new initiatives.

These advisory groups are made up of representatives of participating councils to manage each activity or service. The participants decide the scope of the project and the desired outcomes and work collaboratively to achieve them. This enables BOPLASS to benefit from the expert knowledge of staff and involve them in the process