Dr Lester Levy is an entertaining, provocative and inspirational speaker with a wealth of practical and applied experience.
Business leader, medical doctor, entrepreneur, author and inspirational, entertaining and provocative speaker, Lester Levy is best known for leading a number of significant performance transformations in both the private and public sectors.
A graduate of Medicine and an MBA, Lester has extensive management experience in large and medium sized organisations, including Chief Executive of South Auckland Health, The MercyAscot Private Hospital Group (of which he was a founder) and The New Zealand Blood Service. He is currently Chief Executive of Excelerator and Adjunct Professor of Leadership at the University of Auckland Business School.
Lester is an accomplished communicator whose speaking style results in the audience carrying long lasting visual images in their mind that can be applied when the opportunity arises, and he does all this with humour. It is extremely common for people who have been in Lester's audience to return to work the next day and immediately apply some of the principles and fundamentals at the core of his message.
He is author of 'Leadership and the Whirlpool Effect', a model for successful leadership that throws down the challenge – allow your organisation to fulfill its potential by promoting innovation, trust, teamwork and communication.
Lester’s leadership research interests include the leadership-culture-performance connection, the differences between leadership and management identities, workforce perceptions of leadership, leadership stereotypes and the role of narrative and imagery in leadership and leadership development.
His formative management career was within the multi-national environment with 3M, Beecham Research Laboratories and SmithKline Beecham in a range of senior management positions. From the multi-nationals he moved into the public health sector with a desire to bring to the sector a stronger commercial, quality and customer focus. Lester’s first role in the public health sector was General Manager in the Bay of Plenty, from where he was seconded to the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet in 1992.
During the period 1993 through 1997 Lester was Chief Executive of South Auckland Health one of the largest public health companies in New Zealand with revenue of $200 million and 3,200 staff. During Lester’s tenure South Auckland Health had a significant turnaround with an operating deficit of $23 million transformed into a profit, accompanied by major positive turnarounds in both clinical quality and patient satisfaction. At the same time, South Auckland Health commenced a major futuristic facilities modernisation programme.
In 1994 and again in 1996 Lester was awarded a prestigious Kings Fund International Fellowship from the Kings Fund in London. These fellowships are awarded every two years to the 25 outstanding healthcare managers internationally.
On leaving South Auckland Health, Lester began a new career developing a private healthcare sector company that owns and operates private hospitals, day surgeries and accident and medical clinics. More recently (until July 2002), he was CEO of Ascot Hospital.
Lester was CEO, NZ Blood Service until September 2003. This organisation is responsible for the safe and available supply of blood and blood products. This position appealed to his sense of duty and was another opportunity for him to be of service to NZ and work with rapidly emerging technologies.
During the period 1997 to early 2000 Lester was Chairman of Communicado, an independent film and television company.
In 2000 Lester was made a Fellow of the New Zealand Institute of Management. He is also a Fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Medical Administrators.
