By PHILIPPA STEVENSON agriculture editor
Leading Fonterra executive Jim Hepburn, who was given his marching orders a year ago, is close to returning to the company.
Hepburn, a 12-year industry veteran who headed Fonterra's $1 billion NZMP subsidiary in the Americas, was axed last March in a global organisational shakeup.
The Florida-based
NZMP managing director, who had more than two years to run on a five-year contract, said his dismissal came "out of the blue".
A bitter Hepburn told the Business Herald he received a one-sentence reason for his unexpected redundancy.
He "no longer fitted into the company's organisational structure", Hepburn said. "That's it. Goodnight Charlie."
Hepburn's rehabilitation may have come at the behest of his friend, Fonterra chairman Henry van der Heyden, who was not in the role when Hepburn was dumped.
Fonterra chief executive Craig Norgate said the company was now likely to use Hepburn in "certain capacities" in America.
Asked whether Hepburn should have been sacked in the first place, Norgate said the new arrangement would be totally different to the old.
The role was still being worked on. "It is not a consultancy relationship but it is not a fulltime role either," he said.
It is unknown what redundancy settlement Hepburn received.
He has been described as very competent and good with customers, but a tempestuous man who did not tolerate fools gladly.
"He might not be everyone's cup of tea and was possibly too much of a straight shooter," a source said last year.
Hepburn was with NZMP in several positions for 12 years and 3 months, and in America from June 1999.
