An ace in the pack

Dr Ashley Bloomfield MInstD is waiting for the next hand to be dealt. The last one was like a horror show, with Covid-19 and its deadly mutations on nearly every card. But he played them all as if everyone’s life depended on it – and they did.

The face of New Zealand’s Covid-19 response with Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, Bloomfield stepped down as Director-General of Health at the end of July because “the time felt right”.

The world of governance awaits as an option and Bloomfield knows he has a lot to offer – with experience in organisational leadership, including crisis management, being top of the list as part of a pandemic response credited with “saving thousands, if not tens of thousands of lives”.

For more than two years, Bloomfield brought reassurance, complementing Ardern as they delivered the daily updates and the drastic measures needed to protect Kiwis.

He was cool, calm and collected, and immediately embraced in living rooms and on social media channels around the country. As a public servant, he escaped most of the vitriol directed at politicians – and Ardern, in particular. 

Behind the scenes, he was not only calm, but considered and compassionate. 

Bloomfield will join an IoD five-day Company Directors’ Course in November as he seeks to strengthen and improve his governance skills. He is anticipating a future across the public and private sectors.

“I’m looking for opportunities and one of those is taking on more formal governance roles as a board member. I’m really keen to not only develop my skills in that area but also link up with people who are in those roles and learn from them.

“My real passion and interest is in organisational culture, values-based leadership and how to get the best out of leaders, and I’m really keen to help share that experience in whatever role.

“I feel that I certainly have plenty to offer. I’m not sure what the next hand is I will be dealt, but I’m looking forward to it. I expect it to involve some formal governance roles so I want to make sure I am equipped as possible to do that really well.”

Under the spotlight

Bloomfield says he has spent a lot of time reflecting on how he was unintentionally thrust into the spotlight. 

“We didn’t know what hand we were going to be dealt, but we had to pick up the hand and bring all our experience, our skills, our networks and relationships, and, most of all, our values to bear on how we played the hand.

“I found myself in that position and not without some absolutely harrowing moments. I have talked about waking up at three in the morning in a cold sweat in the early days, but then recognising, ‘Shoot, this is the hand and here I am at the table. I need to do my best’.”

As Director-General for four years and a total of seven years as a chief executive in a public sector organisation, Bloomfield says he has been effectively carrying out governance functions, although as Director-General there was no board to report to.

He did report to a board when he was a District Health Board chief executive and described them as “quite complex because the majority of members are elected through local body elections and the rest are appointed. It makes for an interesting board make-up”. 

“A chief executive’s relationship with the board chair is critical,” says Bloomfield, who has also served on community-based boards, such as a local school and NGOs.

“Boards need the right information. It’s been my experience that there is always asymmetry of information between boards and the chief executive, and there has to be a strong relationship of trust. Information can always be curated to an extent, but it needs to be open and transparent and when the board asks the tough questions it needs to know it is getting the correct and accurate info. 

“The chief executive does not need the board interfering in the business or digging into operational decisions. Boards need to focus on key roles around setting strategy, ensuring the organisation is delivering against that strategy and there are clear plans identifying and managing risk.

“Most of my career has been in the health sector. The last four years I have also been a senior public servant. You could argue that I have worked as close as any public servant with political leaders. 

“Yes, the perspective I was bringing was a public health one, but I have been part of leadership teams across government, leading not just the Covid response but broader initiatives. 

“I think my skill set goes beyond just health into policy-making across government, the policy-political interface, organisational leadership and governance, and leadership in a crisis, as it were. These are the areas I am looking to develop,” he said.

He may understate “leadership in a crisis”, but Bloomfield says the lessons in the pandemic are the same when it’s not a crisis – they are just amplified more. 

“I’ve certainly spent quite a lot of time thinking about the key lessons learned. 

“I’ve been invited – and talked – to a whole range of audiences and each time I refine these lessons further. There may even be a book in there at some point.”

'Huge privilege'

Bloomfield says it was a “huge privilege” being Director-General and standing alongside Ardern in the Covid-19 fight, although he didn’t enjoy the adulation “so much”.

“I have really appreciated the thousands of people who have written to me or emailed, or approached me in the street, often for a chat or a selfie. Not one of them – and there have been thousands – has been rude or unpleasant. They have been generous and grateful.”

But the celebrity status has allowed him to connect with many people and he is excited to “interact with people that I might not have otherwise”.   

There have been many reflections but no regrets in the course of action they took, including locking down New Zealand and trying to eliminate the virus in the beginning.  

“Hindsight is a wonderful thing,” he says. “I often get asked, ‘Do you have any regrets?’ 

“I don’t. In March 2020, Mike Ryan, the Irish doctor who leads the WHO response, said ‘Act now, have no regrets’. That stuck in my mind. Choose your pathway – and we did. The worst thing you can do is not act.

“Of course, there are things I would do differently,” he says, “particularly engaging with communities much earlier – Māori, Pasifika and disabled people. Those communities were hit hardest. If we got in there earlier and put in place formal mechanisms to get input from them, we could have done a better job in supporting them.”

Ardern spoke glowingly of Bloomfield when he announced his early departure, saying his “focus on people and his calm and considered approach” has shown him as a “true public servant”.

“He has been central to our Covid success as a nation and he’s done it with humour and grace,” Ardern said.

Bloomfield says they developed a coherent and strong working relationship based on “great respect for each other as individuals but also for the roles each one was playing. And being able to keep things in perspective”.

“I have been asked by kids, ‘Is Jacinda your BFF’, and I say ‘Well, no. Even when she calls me, I always call her Prime Minister. They are puzzled by that.”

Now it is time for Bloomfield to consider his family as he spends time with wife Libby and their three children, and pursue his love for cycling and the mountains.

He can also focus on his own health and get “the cortisol levels back to normal” before seeing how the next cards fall.