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The Pindrop Foundation is the public face and fundraising "arm" of the of Northern Cochlear Implant Trust.
The Trust is governed by a Board of Trustees who collectively offer a wealth of experience and expertise in assisting the Trust to pursue its goal to provide a world class cochlear Implant service.
"NCIT" was founded in June 2005. The Trust acquired the contract with The Ministry of Health to provide the publicly funded cochlear implant programme in the Northern region.
There is no other public funder of these services in the region, but private surgery; habilitation and audiology are available for those that are able to pay.
Our role is to contract with key service providers to deliver audiology, rehabilitation for adults, and habilitation for the children and surgical services for the implant itself.
We govern and co-ordinate the service so that severe and profoundly deaf individuals can not only hear but can speak and eventually interact fully with the community around them.
The current service providers are:
The current Board composition of the Pindrop Foundation is:
Peter Aitken (Chair)
Bill Keith (Deputy Chair)
Janice Mitchell (Treasurer)
Lee Schoushkoff (CEO)
Di McCarthy
Ron Goodey
Paul Dyson
Bill Baber
Lesley Pope
Ann Loudon
Peter Aitken (Chair of Trustees)
Peter comes to the organisation with an impressive pedigree.
He holds a BCA from Victoria University where he majored in Economics.
Peter has recently retired as Managing Director of Mazda New Zealand and was also a Director of automative retail and manufacturing companies since 1987. He is currently Managing Director of Clear Edge Ltd which specialises in event management and he retains a role as a Trustee of the Mazda New Zealand Foundation.
Peter is excited to be part of the Pindrop Foundation as he is passionate about creating and implement projects for the dual worlds of corporate and not-for-profit organisations which contribute to community well-being.
Bill Keith (Dep. Chair)
Bill Keith is an audiologist and Managing Director of hearing aid company Phonak New Zealand Ltd.
Bill was previously Principal Audiologist, National Audiology Centre, Department of Health, and was involved in establishing many hearing services and policies in New Zealand including the University of Auckland audiology training programme and New Zealand's first cochlear implant service.
Bill has been awarded a Queen's Service Order for Public Service, a Fulbright Travel Award for his graduate studies at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, and Life Memberships of the NZ Audiological Society and the Hearing Association.
Over the past 35 years Bill has served on numerous health, research, deafness, professional, business and voluntary organisation committees and Boards. He currently also serves on the National Steering Team for Universal Newborn Hearing Screening (Project HIEDI), the Scientific Committee of the Deafness Research Foundation, the Board of Directors of the Deafness Research Foundation and the Board of Directors of Abilities Incorporated.
Janice Mitchell (Treasurer)
Janice comes to the Trust with a background of working as a financial executive for Godfrey Hirst Carpets Ltd.
She has worked for Godfrey Hirst in various capacities for fifteen years. Her commercial experience has also included two years living in Europe where she was involved in the setting up of the Giorgio Armani and Bulgari jewelry stores.
Janice was born with a congenital hearing problem which got progressively worse over the years. Along with her older sister and younger brother, she has received a cochlear implant.
Having an implant has allowed her to continue working, enjoy an active social life and to participate fully with strong relationships with her grandchildren and life in general.
As part of her commitment to the Trust Janice regularly talks with implant candidates, attends meetings related to the programme (both social and professional) and assists with research projects.
Janice believes that her passion and background in having had an implant and her experience and understanding of the high impact it can have on people's lives puts her in a useful position to contribute to the Trust's objectives from a consumer perspective.
Lee Schoushkoff (Trustee and Chief Executive)
Lee's role as Chief Executive comes with impressive pedigree. He has held senior management roles with the National Heart Foundation, Presbyterian Support (Nthrn) and the Child Health Research Foundation.
Since his involvement with those organisations, Lee has undertaken a number of contract roles including the Cochlear Implant Foundation and Hearing House services - and he was also Business /Youth Development Manager with Youth Horizons Trust, who are involved in Residential through to Care to Independence programmes with children with High Complex Needs.
Lee brings a wealth of knowledge and fundraising experience within the private sector and his ability to 'build the brand' and implement cornerstone marketing initiatives in the not-for-profit sector is universally recognized within the industry.
Di McCarthy
Di McCarthy, previously Pro Vice-Chancellor (Equal Opportunities) and Associate Dean, Faculty of Science at The University of Auckland, has experience in academia, having served on most of the university's major committees.
She is currently the CEO of the Royal Society of New Zealand. Di has degrees in pure and applied mathematics, experimental psychology and music. Her current research interests are in Behavioural Neuroscience and she is a recipient of a University Distinguished Teaching Award.
Her contributions to the broader science community in New Zealand include a 6-year term as a Director of AgResearch, the largest Crown Research Institute in New Zealand,
and a 4-year term on the Council of the Royal Society of New Zealand.
For the past 10 years Di has served on the Board of Governors of the Deafness Research Foundation and chaired its Scientific Committee.
Ron Goodey
Ron Goodey is an Australian-born New Zealander. He was educated at Mt Albert Grammar school and at Otago Medical school. Family involvement with education of deaf children led him to train as an ear nose and throat surgeon.
Ron obtained his Australasian Fellowship in Otolaryngology before studying further in Belfast and Detroit. He is currently president of the Deafness Research Foundation, an honorary senior lecturer in the Auckland School of Medicine and chairman of the advisory board of the European based Tinnitus Research Initiative. In the past he has been head of the Ear, Nose & Throat department at Green Lane Hospital, chairman of the Dilworth Clinic and an examiner for the Australasian College.
His major interests have always been in the ear and hearing and his practice is now confined to otology. Principal research interests have been in reconstructive ear surgery, tinnitus, congenital deafness and the establishment of a Cochlear Implant Programme in New Zealand and of the Hearing House to provide auditory verbal training.
Ron has extensive experience in cochlear implant surgery and the provision of cochlear implant services. Ron is married to Lesley and they have four adult children of whom two are also doctors.
Paul Dyson
Paul Dyson has spent over 25 years working in the medical device industry and has worked in Australia (9 years); France (8 years) and the UK (7 years). He brings to the Board his long-held commitment to improving the lives of others through the benefits of advanced technologies. Along with his years of working in this field come excellent contacts and international experience in all aspects of the medical device industry.
In the past 10 years Paul has been CEO of two successful “start-up” technology companies (one based in the UK and the other operating in India and Russia) and contributed at senior levels in various others. Coincidentally when Paul started his career in the early 80s as a circuits-and-systems-designer for pacemakers and implantable defibrillators in Sydney he worked in the same laboratories where the Cochlear brand Cochlear Implant was first developed. Cochlear was a sister company to his employer.
Paul holds a BSc and a BE(Hons) from the University of Sydney and lives with his wife, Alison, and two children in Auckland. Presently he operates his own consulting company and an international sales and marketing business for medical devices (specifically for sleep apnoea and respiratory disorders).
Bill Baber
Bill graduated from Otago University in 1968 and completed post-graduate training as an ear, nose and throat surgeon at the Royal National Throat, Nose and Ear Hospital in London in 1973.
Bill’s special interest in Otology (ear surgery) was increased by further study in America and Australia, attending courses and lectures. When Sir Patrick Eisdell-Moore, through the Deafness Research Foundation, proposed starting a Cochlear Implant programme for New Zealand, Ron Goodey and Bill Baber together with audiologists (including Bill Keith) and an Adviser for Deaf Children, set up the protocols and carried out the first implant in 1986.
Since then, several hundred people from babies to octogenarians, have received cochlear implants in New Zealand with results comparable to those around the world.
Working with a team of dedicated professionals to restore or develop the sense of hearing has easily made this the highlight of Bill’s career in ENT Surgery.
Lesley Pope
Lesley has extensive business, strategic marketing and change management experience, gained from roles in corporate, small business and Government organisations both in New Zealand and overseas.
Lesley’s marketing background includes consumer goods, business to business, banking and insurance sectors. She has led strong customer orientation into businesses, driven the development of new income streams, developed, repositioned and built brands and leveraged significant sponsorships for both business gains and to encourage staff involvement.
Lesley has considerable experience in change management, having been involved in a number of company mergers as well as adapting business and marketing strategies to meet changing and challenging environments.
She also brings governance experience to the Foundation. Lesley is a Committee Member of the Huntington Disease (Auckland) Association. She is a member of the Institute of Directors, a past Vice President of the Association of New Zealand Advertisers, a past member of the Advertising Complaints Board and past Director of SMEI. She has also held several governance roles with companies associated with her employment.
Ann Loudon
Ann Loudon is founder and director of StreetSMART Group, an Ellerslie Auckland based chartered accounting firm specialising in advising small and medium sized businesses and investors. She is also co-founder and director of master franchisor for Office Champions, a new franchise recently launched in New Zealand.
Ann was brought up on a farm in South Otago and gradually lost her hearing until she was profoundly deaf as a teenager. She mainstreamed through school and Otago University (relying on lip reading and helpful friends) and obtained her accounting degree in 1979 before moving to Auckland in 1980. She started her own chartered accounting business in 1989 and had a successful cochlear implant in 1996. Ann is divorced with two teenage sons.
Ann enjoys business and investment, reading, good food and wine, running, snow skiing, movies (preferably sub titled!) and traveling to new places.
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