Lieutenant General Sir Jeremiah Mateparae (born 14 November 1954) is a former New Zealand soldier who served as the 20th Governor-General of New Zealand between 2011 and 2016, the second Māori person to hold the office, after Sir Paul Reeves. A former officer in the New Zealand Army, he was Chief of the New Zealand Defence Force from 2006 to 2011, and then served as the director of the New Zealand Government Communications Security Bureau for five months in 2011. Following his term as governor-general, Mateparae was the High Commissioner of New Zealand to the United Kingdom between 2017 and 2020. Early life Mateparae was born on 14 November 1954 to the Andrews family in Wanganui. He was given to his mother's brother, a Mateparae, to be raised in the Māori customary adoption known as whāngai. His birth father and his adoptive father were both ministers in the Rātana Church. He is descended from the Ngāti Tūwharetoa and Ngāti Kahungunu tribes and also has links to Tūhoe and tribes in the upper Whanganui. He was raised in the Whanganui suburb of Castlecliff and attended Castlecliff Primary School, Rutherford Intermediate School and Wanganui High School. Military career Mateparae enlisted as a private in the Regular Force of the New Zealand Army in June 1972. In December 1976, he graduated from the Officer Cadet School, Portsea in Australia. He served in both battalions of the Royal New Zealand Infantry Regiment and in the New Zealand Special Air Service. He was a platoon commander in Singapore in 1979. Mateparae had two operational postings to peace support missions, one 12-month tour of duty with the United Nations Truce Supervision Organization as the Chief Observer in Southern Lebanon from May 1994 to May 1995, and commanding the combined-force Peace Monitoring Group on Bougainville during Operation Belisi in 1998. On 24 December 1999, he was promoted to brigadier, in the post of Land Component Commander, Joint Forces New Zealand. From December 1999 to July 2001, he was the Joint Commander for New Zealand forces attached to the United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor. In February 2002, Mateparae was promoted to major general and became the Chief of General Staff. The title was changed in mid-2002 to Chief of Army. On 1 May 2006 he was promoted to lieutenant general and took up appointment as the Chief of Defence Force, New Zealand's senior uniformed military appointment,