Peter Miskimmin - CEO

Peter came to SPARC in late 2006, after 17 years at New Zealand Post where he was Head of Corporate Sales and prior to that held a number of senior management roles in Marketing and Commercial.

Peter has a wealth of experience as an athlete, coach and administrator. A former captain of the New Zealand hockey team, he played 150 test matches for New Zealand from 1978 to 1992. He won the New Zealand Hockey Player of the Year Award twice, and played at the 1984 Los Angeles and 1992 Barcelona Olympic Games as well as the 1982 and 1986 Hockey World Cups. He went on to become Leader Athlete Services in the Games Management Team for the 1998 Kula Lumpur Commonwealth Games and 2000 Sydney Olympic Games.

Peter coached the Wellington Men’s National League Hockey Team from 2003, winning three national titles. He has also coached the Wellington provincial under 21 men’s team and won back-to-back national titles in 2006 and 2007. He won the Sport Wellington Coach of the Year in 2006 and is currently a New Zealand Academy of Sport carded coach. Peter was appointed Junior Black Sticks men’s coach for the 2009 Junior Hockey World Cup where the team (ranked 12th prior to the tournament) finished 4th.

In 1992 Peter was appointed to the New Zealand Olympic Committee’s Athletes Commission and was the Chairperson of the Commission from 1993 to 2000. He was a Board member of the New Zealand Olympic Committee from 1993 to 2000, a Board member of the New Zealand Sports Foundation from 1995 to1999 and was President of the Olympian Club of New Zealand from 1999-2009.

Peter was appointed to SPARC's Board in April 2006 and resigned from the Board to take up the position of GM Sector Development at SPARC.  Peter was appointed Chief Executive in April 2008.

Lynda James - General Manager, Corporate Services

As SPARC's General Manager Corporate Services, Lynda James has overall responsibility for finance, business planning, information services, procurement and office administration.

Lynda has worked at SPARC since February 2005 as Chief Financial Officer.

Lynda is a Chartered Accountant and has 17 years experience in the public sector. Ten of those years were spent in auditing roles: seven with Audit New Zealand and three in the Ministry of Agriculture and Ministry of Fisheries.

Lynda made the transition from audit to financial management as Strategic Business Manager with the Ministry of Women's Affairs and then as Manager of Finance and Performance for the Community Development Group at the Department of Internal Affairs.

Martin Toomey - General Manager, High Performance

Paula Cody - General Manager, Research, Policy and Evaluation

Paula is General Manager of the Research, Policy and Evaluation group at SPARC. This group has responsibility for analysing and recommending strategic business directions for SPARC, managing the relationship between SPARC and the Government; and measuring SPARC’s effectiveness in achieving its goals.

Paula has been at SPARC since 2003. She moved from Manager of the Policy team (after some time overseas in 2007/08) to the GM role in June 2008.

Paula has a strong background in research, policy development, and operational policy. She has 12 years experience in the public sector, including several years in the Office Treaty Settlements (Ministry of Justice) in policy and negotiations. She also has policy analysis, business planning and strategic planning experience in the building and housing, and transport sectors. Paula has been published in the areas of mental health and oral history and has a Bachelors degree and post graduate qualifications, including a Master’s degree, in New Zealand social history.

Paula is also a keen cyclist, completing two 500km cycle challenges for Oxfam across Vietnam and Laos.