Perry worked as client manager of investment services at ASB at the turn of the millennium before moving on to AMP, Tower and then to the Reserve Bank, where he was manager of monetary policy analysis in the economics department.

Fred Dodds, chief executive of the Institute of Financial Advisers, worked with him for five years at Tower.

Dodds said he had a “great big bit of well-formed grey matter”.  “I can remember him dismantling criticism of one of his decisions in the Roger way of well-thought-out analysis... that was when he gained total following of a diverse team of financial advisers. Not the easiest of groups, I can tell you.”

“He was unflappable, pensive, never emotional, you could never rattle him. He took time to know people, he was genuinely interested in you, not just about work but about you as a person.”

Dodds said Perry told him in 2016 that he had been told he would die. “I have never given a man a hug in public and cried.  I did that day.”

Simplicity founder Sam Stubbs also worked with Perry at Tower and remembered him as a modest man who was a key part of the management team. 

His role, managing the distribution channels for Tower, required a lot of diplomacy, Stubbs said, which Perry managed with ease.

“He was a wonderful man with a formidable brain. He was a chess champion, a voracious reader, a true intellectual. He found his natural home in the Reserve Bank. It didn’t matter how stressful a situation he was in, he handled it with a cool and calm demeanour. He was a delight to work with. I was very happy he went to work for the Reserve Bank, it’s better for having people like him working there.”

Perry, who was also a keen runner, leaves behind his wife and children.  His funeral is being held on Wednesday in Wellington.