Naki’s brightest spark

When he left school he took up an apprenticeship as an electrician and much of his work as a tradesman involved wiring dairy sheds and electrical contracting work in dairy factories around South Taranaki.

But as well, MacLeod comes from a dairy farming family and is now involved in helping to manage Fonterra's largest single milk supplier in the region – Parininihi Ki Waitotara – a large Maori incorporation. To top it off he's also the chairman of the Taranaki Regional Council (TRC) and a director of Port Taranaki.

MacLeod's background is unusual in that he's seen the dairy industry from many perspectives and is a highly successful businessman and professional director.

"I established a huge amount of understanding about the process side of things in those early days working as an electrician on farms and at some of the big dairy factories such as Kiwi in Hawera.

"At about the same time I gained an insight into the governance of the dairy industry. I knew the chairman of Kiwi Dairy at the time. That's when I got my appetite for governance – looking at those guys and thinking, gee wouldn't it be wonderful to be at the decision making table of a great company like Kiwi. You could say I started in the boardroom of the dairy industry at a young age when I was replacing lamps and fixing air conditioning and that sort of stuff."

Dairying is in MacLeod's DNA and he has a passion for it and everything else he's ever done. His extended family have been dairy farmers in the Manaia area of Taranaki for at least 130 years. He was raised on the dairy farm his folks have owned since 1904 and which his brother still farms.

When MacLeod left school he took his father's advice to learn a trade then perhaps return one day to the farm. At age 23 he had opportunity to buy a share in the electrical company he was working for – Greaves Electrical. That effectively ruled out returning to the farm, confirmed in 1999 when he bought the remainder of the business.

The company now has about 80 staff and is the largest in South Taranaki, with dairying is main customer. It handles a full spectrum of electrical work – lights and plugs, domestic installations, high voltage transformers and power poles in subdivisions.

With his company doing well, MacLeod looked for another challenge, finding it in local government when the TRC chairman died suddenly in 2000. MacLeod won the by-election and is now in his fifth term on the TRC and second term as chairman.

"At that stage I was truly at a decision making table.... A year later I was elected to go onto the Port Taranaki board and that's when my corporate governance skills really started to develop, " he says.

MacLeod admits his background as a Fonterra director is unusual and believes it helped him get elected. "I have a thorough understanding of environmental sustainability issues and a good understanding of how to reach goals in society by getting a wide variety of interests around a table to discuss these matters. I can be at a table with Fish and Game, Forest and Bird, Federated Farmers and Fonterra and get them to reach common ground."

Macleod admits the challenge in balancing economic and environmental matters, achievable by convincing environmentalists that only when dairy farmers are profitable can they deal effectively with environmental matters. Farmers also want a good environment; pragmatism is needed for good outcomes.

Nationally, environmental sustainability is the number one issue, MacLeod says. "It's our license to operate. Environmental performance is our greatest risk."

While campaigning for the Fonterra directorship MacLeod toured the country gaining insights into regions. He picked up farmers' frustration with regional councils. He finds farmers willing to do a good job in the environment, but grumpy about councils' inconsistency and rule changes.

"Regional councils must do a good job; everyone has to lift their game. We are not perfect in Taranaki and we have issues to deal with in certain areas. But not by going out there like a big bad cop and punishing everybody."

MacLeod concedes the dairy industry suffers from the 'tall poppy syndrome'. The notion all dairy farmers are mega-rich is a load of bollocks. Fonterra must continue telling New Zealand society that at least 50 % of the revenue going into a dairy farming business is returned to the community.

Farmers too must connect better with their communities and show the gap between urban and rural is not as wide as it may appear. "Dairy farmers need to partake in society to close those gaps and I know a lot of farmers already doing that."