Michelle Pye elected to Fonterra board

Sitting director Alison Watters was re-elected. The third candidate, Mike Fleming, chair of Fortuna Group Ltd, was unsuccessful.

Elections were held for two director positions – director Andy Macfarlane retired after completing eight years on the board.

Michelle and her husband Leighton have owned and operated Pye Group, a large-scale agricultural business based in Canterbury, for over 23 years. They farm over 7,000 hectares with dairy, cropping, process vegetable, grazing, transport and contracting operations. Pye Group’s dairy business consists of ten farms producing 4.5 million milk solids with a further three farms to be added to the group next season.

Michelle has recently been re-elected for a second term as a councillor for Timaru District Council. She is also a director of Potatoes NZ and the chair of The Potato Seed Co-op Ltd. Previously Michelle has been a member of the Fonterra Co-operative Council where she was a committee chair. She was also an inaugural member of the Fonterra Sustainability Advisory Panel.

In the Co-operative Council elections, David Beuth and Tom Houston were elected from Northern Bay of Plenty and Eastern Bay of Plenty wards respectively.

In seven other Co-operative Council wards where elections were due, nominees were elected unopposed.

The councillors in these wards are:
Ward 5 – Hauraki - Ryan Burton

Ward 8 – South Waikato - Wynn Brown

Ward 9 – King Country - Paulette Johns

Ward 14 – Coastal Taranaki - Anne Bridges

Ward 15 – Southern Taranaki - Shirley Kissick

Ward 20 – North Canterbury - Patrick Whittle

Ward 23 – Otago - Larry Frost

Kissick and Whittle are new councillors; the remainder of the above group are re-elected incumbents.