The chief executive of Christchurch council’s holding company has abruptly resigned. 

Christchurch City Holdings Limited (CCHL), which controls billions of dollars of assets on behalf of the council, announced Tim Boyd had resigned on the New Zealand stock exchange website late on Wednesday. His resignation takes effect on Dec 6. 

“It has become apparent that Tim and the board of CCHL have differences of opinion,” the company said in a statement. 

“The CCHL board wishes him all the best in his future endeavours.” 

An independent recruitment process would take place to find a replacement, with Paul Silk filling in as acting CEO in the interim, the company said. 

'Communications'

Boyd only started as CEO of the holding company in March. 

As BusinessDesk has previously reported, he spent a period on leave while an investigation was carried out into “communications” between him and the board. 

CCHL has been reluctant to comment on the matter, saying the process took place under whistleblower legislation. 

Last week, the longstanding chair of the CCHL board, Jeremy Smith, and another director, Christchurch city councillor James Gough, both announced their resignations. 

At least two other directors – the outgoing Christchurch mayor and deputy mayor Lianne Dalziel and Andrew Turner – are expected to leave as CCHL directors, too. 

Boyd, who previously served as a senior advisor at the Ministry of Social Development, was appointed with assistance from the recruitment firm, Decipher Group.

A post celebrating his appointment and detailing his skills and employment history was removed from the Decipher website late last month. A director at the firm said she had no knowledge of this when contacted by BusinessDesk this week. 

A pivotal time

The resignations come at a pivotal time for the organisation, which controls six active trading companies, including Christchurch International Airport Limited and Lyttelton Port Company. 

Last December, city councillors endorsed a letter of expectations to CCHL directing it to undertake a strategic review looking at things such as its purpose, key objectives and its governance structure.   

Multiple sources have told BusinessDesk that Boyd wanted the review to be carried out by the top consulting firm, Boston Consulting Group, but didn’t inform the board. When the board found out, directors allegedly took issue with the cost. 

The CCHL statement said the council had appointed Northington Partners as its independent advisers to undertake the review, without comment on whether Boston Consulting Group had been approached or hired to do the work.

Boyd would have been earning hundreds of thousands of dollars in the role. His predecessor, Paul Munro, had a baseline salary of about $375,000 in the 2021 financial year (although Munro likely would have earned less as he took a salary reduction due to covid-19).

(This story has been updated to insert a missing zero in the salary in the last paragraph)