Facing life without Fonterra

By LIAM DANN

At midnight last Tuesday, as Craig Norgate's contract with Fonterra officially expired, he was still at the office.

"It's strange," he says. "I was faxing my last newsletter to shareholders and when I realised the time I rang my PA and said: 'You better change your voicemail, it's after midnight'."

Norgate makes no secret of his sadness at leaving behind 15 years in the dairy industry.

"I'll miss it. I'll miss it enormously."

When he was told last week that Canadian Andrew Ferrier was getting his job, it came as a surprise.

"It's always a surprise. You know you've got to go sooner or later, you get yourself to the point where you're philosophical about these things. But when the boom drops, you're never ready for it."

Norgate may have been unceremoniously dumped in the eyes of his supporters, but he is not about to fuel the speculation surrounding the decision.

Since the announcement, old questions about the extent to which farmer politics drive Fonterra are being asked again.

The idea that Norgate, Taranaki's golden boy, never stood a chance with a Fonterra board dominated by former rivals from the Waikato is a hot topic with many in the industry.

"I wouldn't comment," he says. "I haven't engaged in that for two years and don't intend to start now."

It would be a shame if those issues re-emerged, he says.

"I hope the speculation that's out there doesn't have people going back to corners. The merger is long behind us, and one of the things that I take the most pride in over the past six months is the way we really got that sense of a single team coming together."

Getting the three factions, Kiwi Co-operative, Dairy Group and the Dairy Board, to work together as a team was also one of his toughest tasks, he admits.

"That's been hugely challenging. It frankly took longer than I thought it would."

The problem was that everybody felt as if they were being taken over, he says.

"Normally in a merger you get one player taking over another and the culture comes through. What we had in Fonterra was three proud organisations who'd always been doing the taking over.

"None of them wanted to let go of the past, yet all of them had to if the thing was going to work."

In the past six months Norgate believes that has happened.

"You do have a common vision now and a strategy that all stakeholders have bought into. What we've got now is exactly what we'd like in terms of driving the organisation internationally."

That is good news for incoming chief executive Ferrier, who faces an enormous challenge in getting to grips with New Zealand's biggest company.

Norgate admits that, like most of New Zealand, he had never heard of Ferrier until last week.

With the traditional grace of an outgoing All Black captain, he wishes him well.

"He'll need a lot of help and space to learn the business, and I'll do whatever I can to make sure he gets as easy a run as possible."

Fonterra management has talked a lot about Ferrier's experience on the international stage.

Chairman Henry van der Heyden said last week that the company had completed the start-up phase and must focus on the world stage.

"Our farmers will live, die or prosper depending on what happens on the global market, and he [Ferrier] has experience in that global market."

Norgate believes it is unfair to suggest that a lack of global experience cost him the job.

"Fonterra has been out on the world stage for a long time and been extraordinarily successful.

"If you read the papers you'd think the business has been consumed by issues within New Zealand. The reality is the real success of the merger is we've been able to do what's had to be done without losing sight of our customers."

Norgate may no longer be the boss but he remains a passionate supporter of the company. It is hard to imagine him leaving New Zealand to work for a competitor, but if he is to continue his career as a corporate heavyweight that is probably what he has to do, he says.