Dr West was appointed Chief Executive of AgResearch in March
2004, bringing to the company key leadership qualities and strategic
thinking.
Dr West was formerly fulltime Chair of the Tertiary Education
Commission, which allocates $2.2 billion of government funding each
year for tertiary education.
He came to AgResearch with an impressive record as a researcher and
within science management, policy development and strategic
planning.
In the early 1990s, he played a major role in the Government's
science reforms, including the design and establishment of MoRST and
FRST, CRIs and the Crown Company Monitoring Advisory Unit (CCMAU).
He was also Science Advisor to the Minister of Research, Science and
Technology working closely with cabinet ministers Margaret Austin
and Simon Upton during the reforms.
When with Ernst & Young in 1995, Dr West developed a sector-wide
strategy for the New Zealand meat industry then in 1996, he became
company strategist for AgResearch where he helped establish the
Foundation for Sheep Research. In the late 1990s, he was CEO of the
Institute of Geological and Nuclear Sciences.
From 2001 to 2002, he was CEO of the New Zealand Qualifications
Authority.
He gained a PhD in Microbial Ecology, Polytechnic of Central London
and is a Fellow of the New Zealand Institute of Management and a
Member of the New Zealand Institute of Directors.
Dr West has been a Director of Seabed Mapping International since
2001 and the Cawthron Research Institute since 2000.
Between 1982 and 1988 he worked for DSIR, researching the soil carbon
cycle and soil erosion.
Geoff Balme started his role as Chief Financial Officer for
AgResearch on Monday, October 31, 2005.
Geoff joins AgResearch after more than two years as acting Chief
Financial Officer and then Chief Operating Officer at Waikato
University.
Prior to this Geoff was a staff member and partner at Beattie
Rickman, one of the larger firms of Chartered Accountants and
business advisors in Hamilton, from 1989 to the end of 2003.
Geoff’s career started at Beattie
Wickham Mirams & Co Chartered Accountants in Hamilton, who
he joined upon leaving school. He completed his accounting
studies on a part time basis at the Waikato Institute of
Technology and became a member of the New Zealand Institute
of Chartered Accountants in 1981.
During the 1980’s he worked in Calgary,
Canada, first for Price Waterhouse and then a small oil and
gas company.
Geoff has a keen interest and
involvement in sport and he is currently the New Zealand
Olympic Luge Association President and a Vice President of
the International Luge Federation. He was an elected member
of the New Zealand Olympic Committee board from 1996 to 2003
and is a former trustee of Sport Waikato. Geoff was the Chef
de Mission (Team Manager) for the New Zealand teams that
competed at the Olympic Winter Games in Nagano, Japan in
1998 and Salt Lake City, USA in 2002. He has attended four
Olympic Games altogether.
Geoff is also an active runner, having
completed nine marathons, and a multi-sport competitor,
having competed in the gruelling Coast to Coast race this
year. He is also a skier, snowboarder and sailor.
In the late 1990’s, while living in
Canada, he competed for New Zealand in international luge
competitions including World Cup and World Championship
events.
Geoff is married to wife Debbie and
they have two teenage children.
Dr Ian Boddy
GM Commercial Services
“Our eyes must continually be wide open and focused on spotting
those synergistic and rewarding, opportunities that come from
apparently diverse technologies and directions. Being aware of the
ways to work in partnership with government and industry and then
being able to manage the issues that come from protecting one's work
and investment in an increasing competitive world will be what makes
AgResearch’s achievements sustainable.
“We should no longer see an artificial divide between science and
commerce.”
Ian has held a number of major positions within AgResearch and
sister organisations. He completed his PhD in Chemistry from the
University of Auckland in 1986 and held a Postdoctoral Fellowship at
Cambridge University from 1986 to 1989.
Ellen came to Hamilton to complete her Social Science degree
majoring in demography then joined the Department of Labour working
predominately with youth identified at risk.
After five years she joined the finance sector and took up her first
human resources role with Trustbank, working under a progressive and
able Chief Executive who provided opportunity to develop and expand
her scope of responsibility. It was also the time of deregulation of
New Zealand’s finance sector and Ellen developed a strong commercial
interest, actively leading a number of national HR initiatives that
aided the company in what was a very competitive and strongly
customer orientated business environment.
At this time she also took up a number of regional and national
committee roles on both industry and employer related bodies.
Following a period of absence from the work force Ellen joined
Beattie Rickman as a senior consultant where she enjoyed three years
working with a mix of private and public sector businesses around
the greater Waikato. Ellen joined AgResearch in the late 90’s and
says that working with 600 scientific staff there is never a dull
moment.
Dr Phillip Lindsay
Chief Information Officer/GM Campus Services
The main emphasis of Dr Lindsay’s role as CIO is to ensure that AgResearch uses IT strategically and effectively to help underpin its science and commercial success. This is achieved through contributing to the strategic planning within the organization and through the delivery of an excellent operational and development capability. His major role in facilitating the development of these services is to promote a quality focused culture within Information Technology Services (ITS) and ILS (Information and Library services). His current professional interests are in Bioinformatics; which is one of the most exciting new science areas, in developing new business opportunities underpinned by our IT services and in developing new information services, where our information professionals (library staff ) are an integrated part of our science teams.
Dr Lindsay completed a PhD in Chemistry and Computing in 1983 and, apart from two years as a University lecturer, he has worked in the computing field within research organizations since that time. Initially this was in the field of electronic development and over the subsequent period has worked in most IT related positions.
Dr Lindsay has had a long-term interest in the development of the Internet and was the foundation chair of the first University / CRI networking group (TuiaNet). He continues this interest today as a member of the board of the NGI society. Dr Lindsay is a member of the NZ Computer Society and the Institute of Directors.
Peter Benfell
Science and Technology GM - Agriculture & Environment
“Our aim must be to ‘walk the balance’ between enhancing industry
productivity while guarding the environment.
“As a group, I want us to contribute strongly to help New Zealand
move back up the OECD's wealth per capita ladder. This resurgence
needs to be done in a sustainable manner. We will do this by working
closely with industry and Government policy makers.”
Peter believes the critical issues to be focused on include new farm
management systems, land use and intensification, water and air
quality, bio control and bio security as well as preparing people to
effectively manage and deal with change.
Peter has an engineering degree and postgraduate diploma in
business. He has worked for two major manufacturing companies and
was a Science Group Manager at Geological and Nuclear Sciences and
more recently Group Manager, Investment Operations at the Foundation
for Research, Science and Technology.
Science and Technology GM - Applied Biotechnologies
"My aim is to manage and expand our capabilities so that sufficient resources can be assembled to achieve maximum benefit for AgResearch and our partners.
"AgResearch's direction is innovative, fresh and exciting and I am committed to helping us all to realise our vision and potential."
Jimmy has extensive scientific and management experience across a number of sectors. He has a BSc with 1st Class Honours in Zoology from the University of Aberdeen and completed his PhD in 1981, travelling to New Zealand to do a post-doctoral fellowship on deer antler physiology. He worked as a scientist predominantly on deer antler, growth and reproductive physiology until he became a science manager in 1994. In 2004 he became the Science & Technology GM for AgResearch's Applied Biotechnologies Group.
Jimmy was one of the original developers of deer velvet extracts that were commercialised initially by BioProducts. He has wide experience of support for deer velvet products in the Asian and North American marketplaces and was awarded the New Zealand Deer Industry Award in 2003 for these contributions.
A director of several AgResearch subsidiary companies in the fields of plant and animal biotechnology, including Grasslanz and Velvet Antler Research New Zealand, Jimmy has particular interests in developing and managing science programmes to achieve commercial outcomes. This means extensive interaction with various sectors of the pastoral industries. He has a broad knowledge of biotechnology for the pastoral industries and a sound vision for the future of farming.
Professor Warren McNabb was appointed Science and Technology General Manager of Food & Textiles in August 2009 and is a Director of Pastoral Genomics and Food SolutioNZ Ltd.
Professor McNabb was formerly the Section Manager of Food, Metabolism & Microbiology at AgResearch, a position he had held since 2005.
Warren first joined AgResearch in 1993 as a Senior Research Scientist in the Nutrition and Behaviour Group where his research was focused on protein and amino acid metabolism in the productive tissues of ruminants. He was promoted to Eminent Research Scientist by AgResearch in 2004.
Prior to that Warren was a CSIRO Postdoctoral Fellow at CSIRO, Division of Plant Industry in Canberra from 1990 until 1993 where his research focused on expression of genes affecting nutritive value in pasture legumes. Warren completed a PhD in Animal Science at Massey University in 1990 and a B. Agric. Sci degree with First Class Honours in Animal Science at Massey University in 1986.
Warren has an adjunct appointment in the Riddet Institute, Massey University as a Professor and is a Principal Investigator in the Riddet Institute Centre of Research Excellence.
Warren's recent research has focused on nutrigenomics and nutritional epigenetics, and on food-host-microbial interactions and food for human health and wellbeing. Warren has over 300 publications including 10 invited plenary papers and 7 invited reviews, and he supervises eight PhD students.
Warren is also a Fellow of the Institute of Agricultural and Horticultural Science and a Professional Member of the New Zealand Institute of Food Science and Technology Inc.
Warren is based at AgResearch Grasslands in Palmerston North.
Allanah has a wide range of media and
communications experience. She has a BA in Political
Science and English and a Post-graduate Diploma in
Journalism (both from Canterbury University).
Early on in her career she was
awarded the Canterbury University Travelling Scholarship
in Journalism to look at media coverage of agriculture
in Britain where she was subsequently seconded to the
BBC in London and Leeds.
Allanah spent the 80’s and early 90’s
based in Canterbury as a News and Current Affairs
journalist
for TV1
, researching, writing and
presenting a range of news coverage including
agriculture, science and technology.
She has appeared on a number of news
programmes, including Canterbury’s TV One regional
programme ‘The Mainland Touch’ and has researched and
fronted a documentary in New York on the number of
nurses heading to the US for work which subsequently was
a finalist in the Qantas Media awards.
Since then Allanah has held senior
communications and media positions for Canterbury
District Health Board, Telecom and more recently TEC.
