Current employment/positions:
I have had more than 20 years experience as a chairman or director of a range of companies, including ASX listed companies and statutory bodies. I am currently chair of Ridley Corporation Limited an Australian company active, among other things, in animal nutrition throughout Australia. I am also on the board and chair a number of other companies and organisations, including the Sheep CRC.
Q: What specific skills do you bring to the board?
K: I am a chemical engineer with first0-hand experience in the food and sugar industries, with senior management roles in operations, marketing, research and business development, including international business.
Research and innovation management is a strong point for me, from both hands-on experience, as well as board level involvement in CRCs, R&D corporations, the Federal Government’s IR&D board and membership of the Prime Ministers Science, Engineering and Innovation Council.
I own and run a substantial fine wool and mixed farming property in Central West NSW. As a woolgrower, I understand the everyday challenges of growing wool and managing the on farm issues that are required to make money. I have a strong practical knowledge of farming and agribusiness.
Q: Why should growers trust you on your corporate track record?
K: I have a reputation throughout Australia and overseas for ethical behaviour and a commitment to the highest standards of corporate governance. I made a major contribution to the design and implementation of the first WoolPoll in 2000 and have successfully chaired the three WoolPolls conducted to date. I chaired the Live Export Review set up by the Federal Government after the Cormo Express affair and I am a director of Australian Farm Institute and I chair the Science Advisory Council for the NSW Minister for Primary Industries.
Q; What is your assessment of AWI and what would you change if anything?
K: AWI has often suffered over recent years from public disunity among board members. This affects staff productivity, it wastes directors’ time, it makes AWI a less attractive place to work and it causes our members and customers to doubt our credentials.
We’ve all heard the saying that “disunity is death”. The disunity comes from some people, including some board members, trying to engage in agri-politics at board level. AWI is not an agri-political organisation, and it is not wellserved by having agri-politicians on its board.
AWI needs a skills-based board of experienced directors. They will hear what agri-politicians have to say, and act as is appropriate. AWI must be allowed to get on with its important work, which is improving the image, demand, cost of production and sustainability of wool.
Following the takeover of Woolmark, the marketing program has been comprehensively revised and re-energised. It is now well-funded within the financial capacity of AWI and in my view has a lot of momentum.
The other big issues, mulesing alternatives and the on farm wool program are also vital to the short and medium term prospects of the wool producers. In relation to farm-oriented research, there is some really interesting work going on, on a collaborative basis with organisations like MLA and various CRCs that leverages woolgrower levies very effectively.
All this work potentially leads to lower costs and improved sustainability for wool production. Of course these are only potential benefits unless they are taken up by woolgrowers. That extension activity is a key interest of mine.
Q: What is your definition of a conflict of interest at board level?
K: The number one duty of any company director is to act first and foremost in the interests of the organisation he or she is directing. Generally, a conflict of interest arises when a board member’s duty to his or her organisation clashes with duties, obligations or interests elsewhere such as business or workplace interests or the interests of his or her family or friends.
Q: What is your stance on mulesing?
K: Our industry leaders committed to phase out mulesing by the end of 2010. The industry has never retracted that commitment and it has been accepted by our customers as a commitment which must be met, and meet it we will. Of course, the easy, populist approach is to advocate the continuation of mulesing. That approach also aligns with the personal interest of at least one of AWI’s present directors.
None of that is in the industry’s interest. As woolgrowers, we need to accept that community attitudes have moved on, just as they have moved on for other livestock industries like pigs and poultry.
On my own property, we have run one mob of unmulesed ewes for several years to assess the management options for un-mulesed sheep. Based on that experience, and what we have learned, we have not mulesed any of our 2008 drop lambs and nor do we intend to mules them.
If we want to produce and market a luxury fibre, we need to do it without mulesing. AWI is well down the track for woolgrowers to have choices by 2010.
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