Lactalis in front to acquire Fonterra’s Australian dairy assets after ACCC clearance
The world's largest dairy company may be in pole position to acquire Fonterra's Australian assets.
Fonterra chief executive Theo Spierings says a new leadership team has now been confirmed for APMEA, effective June 1. It includes 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," says 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.
Spierings says Wilson has made an important contribution to Fonterra, leading sustained growth in the cooperative's Asian and Middle East consumer businesses over the past five years.
Most recently, Wilson has 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 cooperative, which he will do at the end of April."
Fonterra has started a search for a replacement for Wilson.
