High-flyer gets gumboots on

By LIAM DANN primary industries editor

To point out that Fonterra's new boss is a former first five-eighths replacing a former winger (who was built like a prop) might seem a uniquely Kiwi way of looking at things.

The fact that Andrew Ferrier, a 44-year-old Canadian, has no trouble understanding that analogy suggests his arrival in New Zealand might not be the culture shock that many expected.

Ferrier played rugby for 17 years and grew up recognising the All Blacks as the "gold standard" of the game.

Slight in build and conservative in appearance, he comes across as more of an Andrew Mehrtens or Grant Fox than a Carlos Spencer.

But there are big expectations that he will add Spencer-style flair to the Fonterra team.

His predecessor, Craig Norgate, was a nuggety player. Fond of rugby references, Norgate liked to talk about "doing the hard yards".

Most at the company accept that was exactly what the merger process needed.

Now, in Ferrier, Fonterra's board is looking for a chief executive who will play an expansive game on the world stage.

After just three weeks in the job Ferrier has no doubt he can live up to the task.

"What I have realised very quickly is how good it is to be back in the food industry," he says.

"When I sat down with the consumer products people and the ingredients people and went through the issues, they were so familiar.

"It was tremendously comforting."

Although his last job was as a chief executive of a publicly listed manufacturing company called GSW, the bulk of Ferrier's experience is in the sugar business.

Starting on the trading room floor in 1983, he worked his way to the top job in the North American division of Tate & Lyle, the world's biggest sugar company.

It would have been disastrous for Fonterra if Ferrier, who admits he knows nothing about the details of dairy production, had arrived to discover the job was not what he had expected.

"I guess there was potentially that outcome," he concedes."It was a big risk for the board to take to bring me from Canada, but it was a calculated risk."

He is now certain he and the board made the right decision.

"Moving commodities up the value chain is something that I've been doing my whole career," he says.

"Managing commodities better, managing trade issues, dealing with international customers and the big food companies, currency hedging - all the big buttons that are important for a CEO to know, I have those in my arsenal."

Ferrier comes across as urbane and sophisticated. He is well manicured, with the kind of healthy glow that's typical of millionaires, celebrities and high-level executives.

That style, sure to be an asset around the boardroom table with the likes of Nestle, might be something of a barrier to winning the affections of his down-to-earth shareholders.

To his credit he seems genuinely keen to get his gumboots on and learn the gritty details of dairying.

"I'm not the sort of guy that says, 'I just do the high level stuff and that's it'," he says. "I've been asking hundreds, thousands, of questions. I want to become a real expert in the dairy industry." Getting out and meeting people is one of his highest priorities.

"I want people to see that I am a normal kind of guy," he says."I want to know how a dairy farmer works and how a dairy farmer thinks because he's my owner ... or she's my owner."

He has already made trips to Hamilton, Wellington and Hawera - where he got his first chance to meet farmers, at the annual general meeting.

The response has been good, he says. "There's an enormous relief in Fonterra that there is some certainty now around the CEO role.

"I'm feeling positive feedback because people see that I'm engaging right away. I'm jumping in with both feet."

Ferrier says he had just one "honeymoon" week of sitting back and learning before he had to get down to business.

Right now he is in the middle of a detailed review of operations. His goal is to create a comprehensive"to-do" list.

The first task was to get to grips with Fonterra's strategy.

Its goal - to be the world's most efficient producer of dairy commodities while developing sales from value-added products - is one he was happy with before he even started the job.

"I do have that comfort zone because the strategy was well thought out," he says. "In my last job I had to reinvent the strategy and that is a much bigger task. With Fonterra I have to execute the strategy."

There are signs that he is tougher than he looks. Though it's several years since he took to a rugby field, Ferrier played ice hockey - one of the world's most aggressive sports - right up until he left Canada.

"That's a great release," he says. "It's an intensive sport."

With his sporting passion comes a strong belief that the boss is only as good as the team.

"I want to ensure that I've got a very strong team," he says. "I want everybody in Fonterra to know what my agenda is and to bring clarity as soon as I can."

Whatever he does, he plans to move fast. He has organised his life so that he can live and breath Fonterra for the rest of the year.

His family don't get here until January.

While that is partly so that his children can start fresh in the new school year, it also means he has no distractions from his job.

"Although personally I am very distressed by that - I miss my family - professionally it was the right thing to," he says. "It's a totally encompassing job."

For now talk of a life outside Fonterra is redundant. He unwinds by jogging and he plans to enjoy watching the rest of rugby's NPC, but that's it.

Curriculum vitae

Name: Andrew Ferrier.

Age: 44.

Married, with children aged 13, 10 and 9.

Experience

2000-2003, president and chief executive of GSW, a Canadian manufacturer of rain gutters and water heaters.

1998-1999, president and chief executive of Tate & Lyle North American Sugars, Toronto and New York.

1994-1998, president of Redpath Industries, Toronto - a Tate & Lyle subsidiary.

1990-1994, vice-president at Lantic Sugar, Montreal, the market leader in Canada.

Education

1983, Master of Business Administration, Concordia University, Quebec.

1980, Bachelor of Business Administration, University of New Brunswick.

Interests

Sports: rugby, ice hockey, squash, jogging and cycling.