NEWS RELEASE

Mercury appoints new Chief Sustainability Officer

24 April 2025 – Mercury NZ Limited is pleased to announce that senior energy executive Catherine Thompson has been appointed as Mercury’s new Chief Sustainability Officer and will start the role on 28 July 2025.

Catherine has over 30 years’ experience across the energy and legal sectors, including executive level roles at major New Zealand energy providers, Contact Energy and Manawa Energy.

She has expertise across corporate affairs functions as well as sustainability and consenting, strategy and risk management.  

Chief Executive Stew Hamilton said the Chief Sustainability Officer role was key to helping position Mercury as a leader of New Zealand’s electrification journey within a highly complex and dynamic external environment. 

“I’m delighted to be welcoming someone of Catherine’s calibre. She has extensive energy sector experience, a reputation as a person with strong values and the ability to build deep stakeholder relationships. These qualities are key in a sector as interconnected as ours.” 

“Her experience in driving transformation and culture, as well as building and retaining high-performing teams, will also be crucial as we continue to navigate significant change across the business, the sector and wider energy system."  

Catherine was previously GM Regulatory & Risk for Manawa Energy and prior to that was Chief Corporate Affairs Officer and General Counsel for Contact Energy. She has also worked in private practice and in-house legal roles both in the UK and New Zealand.    

Current Chief Sustainability Officer, Lucie Drummond, will stay on until June 2025 to support with the transition.    

ENDS

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