Carrfields expands South Island footprint with Agricentre South Kubota dealership acquisition
Two of the South Island’s agricultural machinery dealers are undertaking strategic changes designed to deliver even greater specialist support to farmers.
"With the significant growth in the overall size of the business in the past 12 months, it was imperative that the business had key people focussing on the strategic direction of the individual business units along with the day to day running within the divisions," says Carr.
Carrfields was formed South Island based Carr Group acquired 50% of the Elders NZ business earlier this year.
The new appointments have been made in the Carrfields Machinery, Carrfields Grain & Seed and Carrflields Livestock and Financial Services businesses. They aim to strengthen and add significant value to the existing business units and current management and provide support to the Carr family management across the Carrfields organisation.
Matthew Keen has been appointed as group general manager of the Carrfields
Machinery division encompassing the CLAAS Harvest Centre, Carrfields Machinery and Carrfields Irrigation.
With more than 20 years' experience in the agri machinery arena,
Keen joined the Carrfields business in July 2014, having worked with Caterpillar in the UK, Gough in Auckland and MB Century in Taupo.
Craig Graham has joined the Carrfields Seed & Grain (Canterbury Seed) business as group general manager. Starting out as an agronomist in Australia, Graham has worked with Landmark, Chemtura Agrosolutions and more recently PrincipalFocus - a regionally focussed accounting and business management business.
Robert Ludecke has joined the Carrfields business as chief operating officer (COO) overseeing the Livestock and Financial Services divisions as well as working on various CP Wool (formerly Elders Primary Wool) projects in both the North and South Islands.
Ludecke's mandate will extend to other business units as required. Originally from New Zealand he has spent the past 25 years in the United Kingdom and Australia working in senior management roles in the banking and financial services industry.
Carr says he is confident the three appointees will bring a wealth of knowledge, experience and direction to Carrfields.
"Along with our existing executive team and family members, I am looking forward to working closely with them as a team moving into 2016 – I believe we have the right people in place to drive the Carrfields business to meet and exceed our group business objectives," he says.
