Karen Poutasi

Dame Karen Olive Poutasi (née Davidson; 12 July 1949 – 1 January 2026) was a New Zealand government official. She was the first woman to serve as director-general of health in New Zealand. She was educated at Gore High School between 1963 and 1967,

Career In 1984, Poutasi was the deputy medical superintendent at Dunedin Hospital. She was awarded a Harkness Fellowship to study public health administration, health policies, and the quality of health care in the United States. Poutasi was medical superintendent of Middlemore Hospital, Auckland, until 1987, when she was appointed chief health officer at the Department of Health. In this role, she headed the Health Department's work to implement the recommendations of the Cartwright Inquiry on cervical cancer as well as New Zealand's efforts to control the spread of HIV/AIDS. In 1989, she was appointed general manager of the Wellington Area Health Board.

Poutasi served as director-general of health at the Ministry of Health from 1995 to 2006, and as chief executive officer of the New Zealand Qualifications Authority from 2006 to 2020. she left that post in 2022 when the district health boards were replaced with a single agency, Te Whatu Ora Health New Zealand. She was appointed to the board of Te Whatu Ora at its inception and became chair in 2023, succeeding Rob Campbell. She resigned that role in April 2024.

Poutasi also held governance roles on the board of Network for Learning from 2014 to 2022 and as chair of Taumata Arowai from 2023 until her death. In December 2022, she wrote a report on the murder of Malachi Subecz, criticising the inaction of Oranga Tamariki leading up to the case. This led to widespread reform within the government to implement preventative measures against the harm of children.

Personal life and death In 1972, she married Samuelu Fa'apoi Poutasi, whom she had met at the University of Otago where he was working in the National Cancer Research Centre as a research assistant. The couple had four children but later divorced. Her husband was ordained in the Presbyterian Church in 1986 and was later the chaplain of Wellington Hospital. He was appointed a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services to the community, in the 1998 Queen's Birthday Honours. He died in 2011. Her funeral was held at St Paul's Cathedral, Wellington. In the 2020 Queen's Birthday Honours, she was promoted to Dame Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to education and the state.