Fonterra Announces Management Changes

24 April 2013
Fonterra Announces Management Changes
Fonterra Co-operative Limited announced today senior management changes in its Asia Pacific Middle East Africa (APMEA) business unit, including the departure of the existing Managing Director APMEA and the appointment of a new Managing Director for Australia.

Fonterra CEO Theo Spierings said a new leadership team had now been confirmed for APMEA, effective June 1. It included a new Managing Director Australia, Judith Swales, who joins Fonterra after leading Heinz across Australasia and before that the Goodyear Dunlop Business in Australia.

“Judith has considerable experience in delivering business turnarounds across a number of industry sectors, with a great understanding of consumer, customer and operations which will be critical in our Australian business,” said Mr Spierings.

With the new management team in place, Fonterra’s Managing Director APMEA Mark Wilson had indicated his intention to leave Fonterra.

The new APMEA leadership team includes:
• Managing Director Australia, Judith Swales
• Managing Director ASEAN, Juan Carlos Pestana, who is currently head of Fonterra’s Latin American JV with Nestle.
• Managing Director ISMEA (Indian Sub-continent, Middle East-Africa), Alan Fitzsimmons, who is currently General Manager of Fonterra’s Indo-China business.
• Managing Director New Zealand, Peter McClure, who is currently in this role.
• Director Commercial, Malcolm Smith, who is currently Chief Financial Officer for Fonterra’s ASEAN- Middle East North Africa business.
• Director Marketing, Chris Augustijns, who is currently Chief Marketing Officer for Fonterra’s ASEAN-Middle East North Africa business.
• Director Operations & Supply Chain, Joe Coote, who is currently Optimisation Director for Fonterra’s NZ Milk Products division in New Zealand.
• Director People, Culture & Services, Garry Mudford, who is currently leading the SAP implementation across the Australia-New Zealand business unit of Fonterra.
Mr Spierings said Mr Wilson has made an important contribution to Fonterra, leading sustained growth in the Co-operative’s Asian and Middle East consumer businesses over the past five years.

Most recently, Mr Wilson had overseen the creation of the new APMEA business unit which will drive synergies and scale across Fonterra’s consumer businesses: “It has been a big undertaking and with all the key management now in place for APMEA Mark has decided due to some family health matters that the time is right for him to leave the Co-operative, which he will do at the end of April.”

Fonterra had commenced a search for a replacement for Mr Wilson.
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