Stephen Jennings: Letter of support for nomination of Roger Kerr for royal honour

March 3, 2011

The Honours Unit
Cabinet Office
Parliament Buildings
Wellington
New Zealand

Dear Sir/Madam,

I am writing to support in the strongest possible terms the nomination of Roger Kerr for an honor, preferably in the Queen’s Birthday list.

I have known Roger for 30 years. I first met him when, as a senior Treasury official, he gave a presentation on the New Zealand economy to students at Massey university. The clarity of his analysis and the sense of personal conviction he conveyed immediately inspired me to become a Treasury Official. I subsequently worked in a junior capacity with Roger at The Treasury and then over a period of eight years provided economic advisory services to Roger and the Zealand Business Roundtable. In more recent years, although based in Russia I have been a member of the Roundtable.

Over my career I have worked with the governments and officials of more than 20 countries. I have not met anyone, anywhere with Roger’s commitment to providing economic and social progress on the basis of rigorous and objective analysis. In my experience Roger is unique.

Roger’s career has been dedicated to making New Zealand a better and more prosperous country. His commitment, tenacity, patience and humility both as a Treasury official and as the Director of the Business Roundtable, has been almost superhuman.

Roger’s modus operandi has been to undertake and sponsor world class economic analysis of key economic issues facing New Zealand. To facilitate this, Roger has drawn leading international economists and specialists across a myriad of issues, into the New Zealand context. The very best minds have been deployed to develop pragmatic solutions tailored to the New Zealand situation.

Roger has fearlessly and tirelessly explained and prompted these ideas across the full spectrum of the New Zealand community. In so doing Roger has been completely objective and impartial. Many of his initiatives have been against the narrow short-term interests of members of the Roundtable. This has never diluted Rogers determination to search for and advocate the “right answer”.

I mention the word fearless, because in seeking to promote a more prosperous country Roger has consistently needed to face down powerful vested interests and to have the courage to rely on the power of ideas to challenge deeply entrenched sacred cows. In so doing Roger has always maintained his dignity, humility and focus on logic and ideas, often in the face of quite personalized and politicized attacks from the vested interests threatened by Roger’s analysis.

Roger is also an exceptional economist in his own right, something that has often been noted by the global specialists Roger has worked with. Roger understands how institutions and regulations really work and affect behavior. His analysis is extremely rigorous and impartial. And he has the rare ability to translate complex and subtle concepts into pragmatic and effective policy prescriptions.

I know of very few New Zealanders whose selfless commitment and contributions to improving New Zealand matches that of Roger.

Yours sincerely,

Stephen Jennings

Chief Executive Officer
Renaissance Group

Sir William Gallagher’s nomination of Roger Kerr for a royal honor

Mr Paul Baines – letter of support

Sir William Birch – letter of support

Sir Paul Callaghan – letter of support

Mr Nicholas Calavrias – letter of support

Sir Roderick Deane – letter of support

Hon Rodney Hide – letter of support

Dr Murray Horn – letter of support