Stuart-Black joined the New Zealand National Emergency Management Agency Te Rākau Whakamarumaru in 2003, and in December 2014 she was appointed director of Civil Defence and Emergency Management. She led the Civil Defence response to the 2016 Kaikōura earthquake, the 2017 Port Hills fires, the 2019 Christchurch mosque attacks and &lt;a href="2019%20Whakaari%20/%20White%20Island%20eruption"&gt;Whakaari / White Island eruption&lt;/a&gt;, and the 2020 response to the coronavirus disease in New Zealand.