Board

Lachie Johnstone joined the Farmlands’ board in 2000 and has been chairman since 2003. He has a commerce background and worked as an accountant before moving onto the family farm in the Waikato, which expanded to 935 hectares involving an intensive bull beef system, breeding ewes, cows and trading cattle. In 2004, Lachie scaled down his farming interests, moving to a 29 ha property near Pukekohe. He is joint managing director and shareholder of chilled and frozen food logistics company, Wholesale Frozen Foods. He is a director and shareholder of privately owned property holding companies Reihana Land Holdings Ltd and Maimere Properties Ltd. He was previously a Meat New Zealand mentor group member and has been involved in community-based farm research projects conducted through AgResearch and the Foundation for Research, Science and Technology.

Peter Wilson
Peter Wilson joined as an independent director of the Farmlands’ board in 2007. He is a chartered accountant and professional company director serving on the boards of several national companies and lives in Wellington. Peter is chairman of Westpac New Zealand Limited and on the board of Westpac Banking Corporation of Australia. He previously worked in public practice in Hawke’s Bay and held numerous directorships of Hawke’s Bay companies, was chairman of Healthcare Hawke’s Bay and the Port of Napier Limited, has also chaired the former Hawke’s Bay Farmers’ Meat Company during industry restructuring in the late 1980s.

David Jensen
David Jensen joined the Farmlands’ board in 2006 and is chairman of its audit committee. David lives at Pyes Pa, Tauranga, where he has a 300 hectare dairy farm, 14 ha of kiwifruit and 5 ha of avocados. David is a director of Satara, a New Zealand kiwifruit and avocado co-operative. He is also on the executive of Tauranga-Katikati Vet Club. Previous positions include director on the Livestock Improvement Regional Board, farm consultancy for the New Zealand Dairy Board, a councillor of both the New Zealand Dairy Group and Livestock Improvement, manager of the National Dairy Excellence Awards and grower director and past chairman of AvoFresh (Avocado).

Steve Wyn-Harris
Steve was elected to the Farmlands board in 2003. He farms 350 hectares of easy hill country near Takapau running breeding ewes including a Coopworth stud and bull beef. He was Hawke’s Bay Farmer of the Year in 1994 and the property was a monitor farm for four years. He served six years on the Landcorp board and has held various positions on a number of community, school and sporting bodies. Steve hosts a rural radio show twice a week and writes a weekly rural newspaper column.

Tony O'Boyle

Tony O'Boyle joined the Farmlands' board in late 2010. Tony has a background in both dairy farming and drystock; growing up on a dairy farm in the Central plateau and now operating a sheep and beef farm in the Wairarapa. Tony has also had various industry roles, including those with the New Zealand Dairy Group and as Chairman of the Fonterra Shareholders' council. Tony is no stranger to the ethos of the co-operative structure, as his Grandather wrote the co-op act in 1956.
 

Dr Helen Cross

Dr Helen Cross was appointed as an Independent Director on the Farmlands Board in late 2010. Helen is the Managing Director and Co-Founder of Cross Venutres Limited, a strategic advisory business focused on helping New Zealand companies expand internationally. Helen specialises in providing a strategic business framework which enables some of New Zealand's fastest growing global companies to step up to the next level of market and fincial performance. She has worked with over 200 businesses including some of New Zealand's leading start-up and high growth companies such as Huffer, Annabel Langbein Media, Activate Group, Vensa Health and Quinovic. Helen has helped many of her clients raise early stage Angel capital, expansion stage Venture capital and government funding for market and research development. Helen has a PhD and First Class Honours degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from the University of Auckland.

Charlie Pedersen

Charlie won the recently contested West ward election and has been farming for the last 32 years with his wife Chrissy at Himitangi on the Manawatu Coast. In the last few years their farming business has expanded into the Lhakune region, where they operate two dairy farms and a support block. Chrissy and Charlie now have all four of their children back helping to run the family business along with three of their partners. Charlie brings many years of Governance experience to Farmlands, having served on some 27 boards, including a number of roles within Federated Farmers. He is presently Chairman of Farmsafe, Vision Manawatu (Manawatu Economic Development Agency), and The Farmers Fighting Fund, as well as being the Board of the Arohonui Hospice.
 

Nikki Davies-Colley
Nikki and her husband Peter have been Farmlands Shareholders since 2004. Nikki is well known in the Northland Business and Farming community. She has been a Board Member of Northpower Ltd for the past 15 years, and is Tertiary qualified with a Masters in Business Administration. Nikki is experienced in strategic analysis, project management, motivation, and ensuring that agreed strategies are carried through to implementation.