Fonterra on hunt for diverse thinking
Kelsey Wilkie talks to one of Fonterra’s two female leaders about her time at one of New Zealand’s biggest companies.
Fonterra has only two female directors, but the dairy giant is pushing for stronger and more diverse leadership. The company has 13 directors, and Nicola Shadbolt is one of two women on the board.
Shadbolt is a busy woman who wears many hats.
She’s a professor of farm and agribusiness management at Massey University, a director of the Centre of Excellence in Farm Business Management, a director of the International Food and Agribusiness Management Association, and represents New Zealand in the International Farm Comparison Network in Dairying.
There are also five farming and forestry equity partnerships, which include two dairy farms, she runs with her husband in Manawatu. Then there’s Fonterra. Shadbolt was elected to the Fonterra board in 2009 and serves on the audit and finance committee.
Farmers approached Shadbolt about standing for the board.
‘‘It was something I was thinking about but the reason I stood was farmers approached me saying: ‘We actually want a different voice, a different perspective on the board, would you stand?’ It was the farmers asking.’’
Diversity is something Fonterra is now actively pushing for.
The company has been undergoing a review of its governance and representation model.
The proposal, released to the NZX and farmers last week, will be voted on by farmer-shareholders, closing on June 10.
Changes are aimed at minimising electioneering, to get better information to farmers and increase focus on attributes and skills.
The size of the board is proposed to shrink to 11 directors.
‘‘Diversity isn’t just about gender, what you’re looking for is diverse thinking,’’ Shadbolt said.
‘‘I’ve never thought of myself as a woman on a board, I’ve thought of myself as a board member. You definitely don’t go in thinking ‘gosh, I’m different, I should be treated differently’, everybody should be treated the same.
‘‘You are aware that, at times, you might look at a problem differently, I don’t know if sometimes that’s because I’m a woman, an academic, a mother, I don’t know why I might look at something differently but I do, and that’s what the board needs – somebody to look at something from a different angle.
‘‘I’ve never felt that it was an issue but I do know that some men have had an issue, but that’s their problem, not mine.
‘‘It has been proven that women have, perhaps, a different approach to things. Gender is part of it but not all of it. What you avoid is people lining up who are too similar in their approach to problems. You need good, robust, rigorous debate.’’
In the past, women had been reluctant to stand, she said, as it can be a daunting process based largely on name recognition.
Traditionally, in the smaller dairy co-operatives, directors came from successful farms and were well respected in their community, she said.
That type of thinking has been slowly changing as the company continues to compete in the everchanging market.
Women in Dairy network chief executive Zelda de Villiers said there was a lot of research showing the benefits of businesses being open to diversity.
‘‘I would think that it would be to Fonterra’s benefit to have a more diverse board but, at the same time, I have always said . . . that you cannot just appoint or recruit on diversity, you have to recruit on the best candidate and then look at diversity secondly.
She said it was important to make sure the opportunity was there.