Southern Cross Medical Care Society has advised that Chris Black and David Bridgman will be seeking appointment as Non Executive Directors at December’s Annual General Meeting, following a director search undertaken by SEQEL Partners.

First established in 1961, Southern Cross are a group of independent health and wellbeing businesses that share a not-for-profit ethos. They are New Zealand’s largest non-public healthcare organisation and serve 1.3 million members, patients and customers each year. 

Christopher Black - Earlier this year Chris stepped down as Chief Executive Officer of FMG after a very successful tenure which included growing this organisation’s revenue and market share significantly. Chris was Chief Executive at FMG since 2009 after initially briefly being a member of the organisation’s Board. Prior to this he had a 14 year career with BNZ and its parent National Australia Bank, initially commencing in finance, although undertaking a range of general management roles in the area of risk, strategy and divisional management across Australia and New Zealand. His early career was spent with investment banks including UBS and Citigroup. Chris holds a Bachelor of Surveying from the University of Otago, has completed a Post Graduate Diploma in Accounting at Victoria University, is a Chartered Accountant and has also attended the Harvard Business School Advanced Management Programme.

David Bridgman – Up until mid-2020 David was a Senior Partner in the PwC Corporate Finance and Restructuring team. As a senior professional services consultant, David toggled between restructuring/insolvency work and transaction advisory, including a considerable amount of mergers and acquisitions activity. David is currently Chair of Index Group, a privately owned car rental company which has a fleet of circa 2,500 vehicles under three brands. He was previously a member of the Board of Governors of Diocesan School for Girls from 2004 – 2014. David holds a LLB from the University of Auckland as well as a Master of Commerce, also from the University of Auckland. He is a Chartered Accountant and has also completed the Advanced Management Programme at INSEAD in France.