WelCom February 2022
Chris Gallavin, appointed CEO of the Sisters of Compassion Group nine months ago, talks with Michael Fitzsimons about the bright future he sees for the organisation.
Chris Gallavin, the Compassion Group’s youthful chief executive, does not pretend to have a balanced life.
‘I’m not a nine-to-fiver. I can’t ever imagine retiring.’
Chris has fingers in a multitude of pies. As well as being a husband and father of three, he is the CEO for the Sisters of Compassion Group three days a week, an adjunct professor of law, a performance poet, chairs the Board of the Centre for Global Studies, does media commentary, makes documentaries on criminal justice issues, and is about to launch Global Citizenship New Zealand – promoting civics education for a new generation.
He likes a busy life, ‘a lively intellectual life at the service of action’.
“I can survive on two or three hours sleep for a long period of time if necessary.”
‘That’s how I have operated for the last 25 years. I can survive on two or three hours sleep for a long period of time if necessary.’
Chris describes his work history as that of an ‘entrepreneurial career academic’. At a young age he was Dean of the Canterbury Law School, which excited him about the possibilities of being a university senior manager, ‘maximising my opportunity to make a difference in the community’. He was awarded an Eisenhower Fellowship in 2018 and on his return became Deputy Pro-Vice Chancellor at Massey University for the next five years. He looked around for Deputy Vice-Chancellor positions overseas but Covid intervened. Out of the blue, he got a call from Compassion Sister Sue Cosgrove, who he had met at Jerusalem several years earlier, telling him about an upcoming chief executive vacancy. He took up the role in 2021, hugely enthused by the five enduring values of the Sisters of Compassion – divine providence, simplicity, justice, advocacy for people in the gap and partnership under Te Tiriti
o Waitangi.
‘These enduring values are everything. I say to the boards, whether it be the soup kitchen, or our place of pilgrimage at Hiruhārama-Jerusalem, whether it be elder care in Upper Hutt, whether it be Compassion housing, or here at the Suzanne Aubert Centre in Island Bay – I say, “what’s your point of difference?” Our commitment is to the mission and living out the five enduring values. If we are not committing 100 per cent to mission, we’re not doing service to Suzanne Aubert and the public of New Zealand.
‘We have 38 Sisters left and there may not be any actively involved in a few years’ time. That does not mean that we won’t have an incredibly vibrant compassion-led organisation, guided by the enduring values and the spirit of Suzanne Aubert, which will be relevant to New Zealand 100 years from now.
‘Our future is incredibly bright. I see opportunity at every turn. There are very few organisations that have the provenance, the history, the focus on community-building of this organisation. If we are not engaged in helping, leading and empowering our community for collective resolution of significant crises, who else is going to do it?’
Chris is inspired by the laser-like focus which Suzanne Aubert had on being where the greatest need is. Those needs change over time. The Sisters used to run a hospital, an orphanage and a crèche but that’s not where the needs are now, he says.
An example of a current need is migrant community support, says Chris. He would like to see the organisation respond to the call of the Red Cross to support the 200–300 Afghan nationals coming to New Zealand, many of them escaping the Taliban.
‘It’s hard to say at this stage what exactly that support will look like but through our networks and good collaboration we know we can make a real difference. It might be that this facility at Island Bay, which at the moment is under-utilised, could have multiple purposes – perhaps a third housing the Sisters, a third housing 10–15 migrant families or individuals on either a temporary triage or longer-term basis, and a third running our own retreats and providing a place of contemplation – key elements of an urban monastery.’
Social housing
Another example of ‘current need’ is social housing. The Sisters of Compassion already have a strong commitment to social housing, providing over 200 social houses, largely in the Horowhenua but also in Whanganui and Upper Hutt. A large proportion of these are financed through a joint venture with Wellington property and investment company, Willis Bond.
‘It’s not just about being an accommodation provider but also about community-building. We have Sisters who live in our Levin complex of houses and we have part-time nurses who care and nurture. We want to do things that are quantifiably different at a time of major housing crisis in New Zealand.
‘Ultimately, I would like the Sisters of Compassion to be recognised as the organisation that facilitates tough conversations on issues that matter, that real work results from. We don’t want to sit around navel-gazing and being no more than talk.’
Chris sees the Compassion organisation as the consummate collaborator. With 150 staff, it is a large organisation with substantial assets to be used in the service of the disadvantaged. Looking ahead, he would like the Compassion enterprise to be a catalyst for change, ‘the spark for something that becomes far bigger than us, to be humble enough to be the quiet player in the background that empowers other organisations to make real change. We don’t need to have our name above the door on everything that is done.’
Bicultural focus
The night before we meet for this interview, the Board of the Compassion Group made a decision to appoint a co-chief executive Māori – a move which greatly excites Chris. He sees it as a high-water mark in becoming a bicultural organisation, working in genuine partnership with Māori.
‘In researching the history of the Sisters and Meri Hohepa [Suzanne Aubert], it’s clear that the history of the order is indelibly linked to Māori. Suzanne Aubert’s approach to working with Māori, her excitement in working with them, her commitment to learning from them, says to me very clearly that the bicultural model of partnership is appropriate for us.
‘It sends a very clear message to all our partners and to Māori and Aotearoa that we are very serious about working collaboratively with Māori. What I hope this will mean is a totally different level of collaboration with Māori partner organisations to do things quantifiably different in the space of health, housing, food security, elder care, youth poverty and community-building.”
Chris Gallavin is not your conventional CEO of a church-based organisation. He relishes innovation. He’s a big picture guy, not a micro-manager. He is one of eight, born in Central Otago but not raised a Catholic. One of the real pleasures of the job, he says, is to learn more about the Catholic world, to help him make sense of the heritage which was in the background of his upbringing.
“I might not be Catholic but I defy you to find another person to whom the five enduring values of this organisation mean more. These values offer so much to a secular world riddled with anxiety, perhaps even more relevant than they were in Suzanne Aubert’s time.’
“Our future is incredibly bright. I see opportunity at every turn.”
We step outside into the quiet courtyard of the beautifully designed Suzanne Aubert Centre. I take his photo. He is a snappy dresser. He gives me his book of poems, ‘a dance together’. Poetry is a dynamic force in his life. He knows 150 poems off by heart and performs them at pubs, music gigs and fish ‘n’ chip shops.
We finish where we began, with the five enduring values.
‘The legacy of Meri Hohepa is for everybody, not just for Catholics or for people from a religious background. Don’t pigeon-hole it. I can tell you the five enduring values align with who Chris Gallavin is so much that they will be, in letter and in spirit, the guiding principles that instruct my life and will do for the rest of my life.’