John Anderson

Who is John Anderson?

Sir John Anthony Anderson KBE was the Chief Executive and Director of ANZ Bank New Zealand and after retiring at the end of 2005, become the chair of Television New Zealand in April 2006. He was awarded the New Zealand 1990 Commemoration Medal and was knighted in 1994.

He began his career in accounting, followed by sharebroking in Melbourne. He returned to New Zealand in 1972 to help form the merchant bank South Pacific Merchant Finance. He became Chief Executive of Southpac in 1979 and within a year of Southpac merging with the National Bank of New Zealand in 1988, he become Chief Executive of the National Bank. Anderson oversaw the National Bank's merger with Rural Bank in 1992 and Countrywide Bank in 1998. In 2004 Lloyds TSB sold The National Bank to the ANZ bank. After ANZ's acquisition of the National Bank he was responsible for ANZ's New Zealand businesses until his retirement at the end of 2005.

Anderson was on a number of business boards in the 1980s, including New Zealand Steel and Petrocorp, where he was Chairman.

He was on the international board of the World Wide Fund for Nature for four years as well as being the New Zealand Chairman. He was also a member of the Prime Minister's Enterprise Council from 1990 to 1999.