Praise for associate director scheme

The role allows the two successful candidates to join the board for a year and fully participate in all the discussions but they do not have voting rights. The aim is to provide up and coming leaders in the sector with experience in governance. DairyNZ has just concluded a recruitment campaign for its next two associate directors.

McIntyre is about half way through his term as an associate director and is full of praise for this DairyNZ initiative. He says he’s been encouraged to participate in the debate at board meetings and told not to just sit there and listen.

“They encourage you to voice your opinion and share it with the rest of the board. It is great in that respect because I have never felt like I couldn’t or shouldn’t contribute. They assigned you a mentor on the board so that you talk about how meetings have gone and about your contributions, and to see if you could have asked a question in a better way or more constructively, which is really cool,” he says.

McIntyre says he’s had the opportunity to talk to other board members and they are keen to help and give good feedback. He says reading through board papers gives one a great insight into the dairy industry.

He says he applied for the role because he wanted to broaden his knowledge and experience in the area of governance. 

McIntyre says his roles in Federated Farmers have mainly been in the area of representation and saw the associate director role as a great opportunity to build on that and gain new skills for future governance positions. 

Already he is involved in two governance roles – as councillor for Fish and Game and as member of the Dairy Industry Awards Trust.

McIntyre says every year he endeavours to do some form of personal development and looking to the future he is keen to get on the Fonterra Governance Development Programme.