A2 updates market
Dairy firm reveals new boss’s starting date
ALMOST seven months after snaring Jayne Hrdlicka as its next chief executive, A2 Milk has announced she will begin in the role later this month.
Ms Hrdlicka, the former head of Qantas Airways’ loyalty business, will take the reins of the Kiwi-based milk producer on July 16.
She will be paid $1.5 million in her new role as well as receiving a one-off $586,666 cash payment – about 67 per cent of the short-term cash incentive she was eligible for at Qantas but forfeited when she resigned.
Ms Hrdlicka will also receive 599,254 time-based rights to acquire A2 shares – about 80 per cent of her forfeited short-term and longterm scrip benefits at Qantas – to vest in four stages between August 28 this year and August 24 next year.
“As previously noted, Jayne is an outstanding senior executive with particular strengths highly relevant to A2 Milk’s next growth phase,” the dairy company said in a statement yesterday.
“These include her extensive experience in strategy formulation and execution, insight into customer-centricity and innovation and importantly an understanding of operating in a disruptive environment.”
When it announced her appointment as chief executive last December, A2 Milk said that given her commitments at the time, Ms Hrdlicka would begin in the role “around the start” of this financial year.
That announcement came as the company – which is listed on the Australian Securities Exchange as well as in New Zealand – was admitted into the ASX 100 index as well as the NZX 10 index.
Ms Hrdlicka, who is also non-executive president of Tennis Australia, previously led Qantas’s budget offshoot, Jetstar, for more than five years.
She succeeds Geoff Babidge.