October 5, 2025 • 8 mins
The chief executive of Synlait reflects on the ups and downs of the role, which he took up in May. Plus, what are Synlait’s plans for the next five years?
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Speaking of loving a challenge, our next guest certainly does.
(00:05):
Here's the new CEO since May of Sinlay, Richard White. Good, Richard,
how are you?
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Yeah? Good? Thanks Hamish.
Speaker 3 (00:12):
Great to have you on the show. I mean, am
I right to say you do love a challenge?
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Yeah? Absolutely? I get bored pretty easily, so my challenge
is always good.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
Nothing boring about taking over sin Lay, though, would imagine?
How has it been the time you've been running the ship?
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Yeah, it's certainly been interesting. I started at the back
end of May and walked in to a pretty few
significant manufacturing challenges, so you so I had to hit
the ground running. There wasn't any time for nice handovers
or anything like that. But it's been good. It's been
a good, good few months.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
Do you feel like there's been a bit of a
positive turn in that time since May, since you've been
at the helm.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Yeah, it's interesting, isn't. It's like any challenge with sort
of just you've just got to build momentum and sometimes
you have a few steps back, but you've just got
to keep word. I'm building that momentum, so I think
certainly the announcement of the North Island Assets last week
is a real positive and that builds big momentum quickly.
But we've still got to get our baby steps and
make sure we do do the basics well too.
Speaker 3 (01:13):
Yeah, so momentum when you get there too. It's perception too,
isn't it.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
Because instantly when I read that story and sudden go, Okay,
there's a bit of a sea change happening here, and
the plans and the goals you have, you can start
to start to see them over time, I guess become
a reality.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Yeah, I mean momentum and positiveness is really important now
and people come to work and goay, right, we've got
that thing done, and now we just we can just
keep winning. It's a bit like a sports team. I
use sports analogies all the time. And as I was
watching that Dallas Cowboys Netflix program on the Plan the
other day, and you know, they went through a number
of years of really poor performance and they start building up,
building up, and then they had a long tenure of
(01:49):
really high success. And you know, business is quite similar
in that respect.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
Yeah, I suppose are plenty of good argue that the
Crusaders were the most rubbish team around in the early days.
Speaker 3 (01:58):
Are super rugby and then you know, rose to their challenges.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
So there's all sorts of sporting analogies we can use, Richard,
So what are the future visions soon a too?
Speaker 3 (02:08):
What does that look like?
Speaker 2 (02:10):
Yeah, look, I mean there's two parts to it. So
the short term is just operational stability and quality performance,
you know, to the end of this year, and then
really it's right, we've got to focus back on done
sound on Look, I haven't. I'm still working on it.
So my goal or my objective by the end of
March is basically have a really clear strategy, a really
clear plan of what we're doing for the next five years.
So you know, there's a lot of things we can do,
(02:33):
but strategy is about choice at the end of the day.
So it's really deciding with the board what are we
going to be going forward. And I think, you know,
the bones of this business are absolutely really strong, so
really good foundation to grow farm. So I'm very excited
about what that looks like.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
Yeah, and I know here you say it's about from
being reactive to proactive, key kind of change there, you know.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
I mean I look around this business and you know,
when your hear is on fire and you're running around
like a mad person. You're not. You're not taking the
time to think purely because you can't, and you know
when you're just having to know you've got to fix
the problem, you've got to do a root cause analysis.
All of that time and energy is important for that
period of time, but it doesn't allow you to look forward.
(03:20):
And I think that's the big shift. I want the
whole business to go on. So they've actually got the
time to think about how do we you know, what
do we look like, and how do we execute that
a bit better so we don't have to be reactive.
So yeah, that's that's the journey wrong Hamish, yep.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
So when you when you go and slice three hundred
and seven millions of debt, three hundred and seven million
dollars of debt with the sale of those North Island
assets to add it, how much breathing space does that create?
Speaker 3 (03:46):
How much time does that give you?
Speaker 1 (03:47):
As opposed to as you say, flying around like a
you know something or other something or other.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
Yeah, look at I mean, it's we've carried a lot
of debt. The main the thing with data is that
it's ultimately is just money. And what that really costs
you is I mean you've got to spend time with
you know, instead of talking to one banker, you've probably
got ten of them in the room, so that takes
a bit more coffee to get through. But aside from there,
it just it gives you the space that you can
survive as a business. I mean twelve months ago, you
(04:15):
know the board we're having weekly daily meetings just about
around survival. So it does give you that breathing space
and it allows us to look at what we're going
to do and where we're going to invest that money
going forward. So it's yeah, I mean being having very
little data is certainly a good thing in the dairy industry.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
So the subsidiary Dairy Wicks tell me just a little
bit more about that. That's obviously performs pretty well and
as a proactive business.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
Yeah, absolutely, it's a predominantly a consumer business, very proactive.
Tim Carter leads that he's done a fantastic job over
many years leading that business and he's got a great
team of people around him and you know they've got
the Dairy Works brand in Alpine and Talbot Forest and
they're mainly focused on consumer in New Zealand, a little
bit of food service as well branching out into Australia
(05:01):
and you know, good stable business with good profits and
for me it's really exciting. They've got a great opportunity
to continue to grow that business.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
So you've been there since in the role of CEO
since May, Richard, you said March would be about when
you'd really like to have your your finger on the pulse.
S uff we had another conversation around then you'd feel
confident that you'd have a few more ducks in a row.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
Yeah, I absolutely no. By then, you know where we're
set in terms of how we've delivered against our operational
stability for the next six months and really have a
view of what the next sort of three to five
years is going to look like.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
You don't come to this as a rookie, Richard, obviously,
you know, you have your You've had experience with Westland.
You were there at a time of great transformation then
and you know, and also before that Meraca up in
Central North Island. You know you've been pretty hands on
for quite some time.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
Yeah, yeah, look I have. I mean I cut my
first three years that open country prior to that, so
I think I mean, I've been involved in building factories.
Actually someone that asked me the other day, and I
think it's over a billion dollars worth of assets. Over
some of the eighteen years have been involved in the
industry and I've seen a lot of things, and yeah,
so look, I hope I'm well placed to help business
(06:21):
grow and that's certainly my intention. We need we need
a bit of time, but yeah, look, I think the
industry has evolved a lot. It's fragmented with obviously the
foundation of Fonterra in the early two thousands. We've seen
some consolidation over the last few months which has been
really interesting with Mediaca Matara Valley and obviously our divestment
as well. So yeah, it's an interesting and dynamic time
(06:43):
for the dair industry. But that's what's great about it.
You know, we are the backbone of the New Zealand economy.
We'll see the money flowing into rural into urban areas eventually,
it'll take a bit of time, but you know, we're
delivering a huge amount of value for the country. So
it's exciting to be involved in the industry and certainly yeah, yeah,
it's it's incredibly dynamic, which was great fun.
Speaker 3 (07:03):
Back by Auto the country.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
Took the words right out of my mouth, Richard wat
CEO of sin Lay and what you're.
Speaker 3 (07:09):
You're based out of Canterbury, out of cross Church, Richard
is that the.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
Yeah, absolutely, sitting in the office and it doesn't stand
at the moment. I've certainly I'm a big believer in
you know, being with the engine roomors. So yeah, based
in christ Church. Yeah, so no, we love it down here.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
Yeah, but you might have had a cheeky weekend at
the wire rapper. Did you did you anything to report
from there? Did you discover you know, anything that you
might like to report?
Speaker 2 (07:34):
I know, I'll tell you what. It was pretty weird,
but they need a bit more rain up there. It
was actually weird in christ Church. But no, you've got family,
all the all the family and the wire episod try
to get up to mast and still got a bit
of a farming interest up there, So just go and
check on that and make sure my cousin's doing a
good job of looking after it. BC Contracting and put
a bit of a plug into stew. But he's a
(07:54):
he's a great, great character who looks after the farm
for me and does a great job. So now I
always love getting up to Martha.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
Yeah, I think I seem to remember a wife and
the Wire Rapper footy team at some I don't know,
there's some rings a bell.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
Anyway, he was a pretty pretty good footballer. Yep, we've
had a we've had a few, but he was in
the wire for Bush team well.
Speaker 3 (08:17):
The Mighty warre a Wrapper Bushy. Good stuff. Hey, Richard,
good at chat and we will chat again.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
No doubt Jamie will at some stage, or it may
be myself if he decides to sworn off to a
rugby game somewhere. But I really appreciate your time, Richard
Wythe Thank you very much.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
Thanks Amus.
Speaker 3 (08:31):
Cheers cheers,
Speaking of loving a challenge, our next guest certainly does.
(00:05):
Here's the new CEO since May of Sinlay, Richard White. Good, Richard,
how are you?
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Yeah? Good? Thanks Hamish.
Speaker 3 (00:12):
Great to have you on the show. I mean, am
I right to say you do love a challenge?
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Yeah? Absolutely? I get bored pretty easily, so my challenge
is always good.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
Nothing boring about taking over sin Lay, though, would imagine?
How has it been the time you've been running the ship?
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Yeah, it's certainly been interesting. I started at the back
end of May and walked in to a pretty few
significant manufacturing challenges, so you so I had to hit
the ground running. There wasn't any time for nice handovers
or anything like that. But it's been good. It's been
a good, good few months.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
Do you feel like there's been a bit of a
positive turn in that time since May, since you've been
at the helm.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Yeah, it's interesting, isn't. It's like any challenge with sort
of just you've just got to build momentum and sometimes
you have a few steps back, but you've just got
to keep word. I'm building that momentum, so I think
certainly the announcement of the North Island Assets last week
is a real positive and that builds big momentum quickly.
But we've still got to get our baby steps and
make sure we do do the basics well too.
Speaker 3 (01:13):
Yeah, so momentum when you get there too. It's perception too,
isn't it.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
Because instantly when I read that story and sudden go, Okay,
there's a bit of a sea change happening here, and
the plans and the goals you have, you can start
to start to see them over time, I guess become
a reality.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Yeah, I mean momentum and positiveness is really important now
and people come to work and goay, right, we've got
that thing done, and now we just we can just
keep winning. It's a bit like a sports team. I
use sports analogies all the time. And as I was
watching that Dallas Cowboys Netflix program on the Plan the
other day, and you know, they went through a number
of years of really poor performance and they start building up,
building up, and then they had a long tenure of
(01:49):
really high success. And you know, business is quite similar
in that respect.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
Yeah, I suppose are plenty of good argue that the
Crusaders were the most rubbish team around in the early days.
Speaker 3 (01:58):
Are super rugby and then you know, rose to their challenges.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
So there's all sorts of sporting analogies we can use, Richard,
So what are the future visions soon a too?
Speaker 3 (02:08):
What does that look like?
Speaker 2 (02:10):
Yeah, look, I mean there's two parts to it. So
the short term is just operational stability and quality performance,
you know, to the end of this year, and then
really it's right, we've got to focus back on done
sound on Look, I haven't. I'm still working on it.
So my goal or my objective by the end of
March is basically have a really clear strategy, a really
clear plan of what we're doing for the next five years.
So you know, there's a lot of things we can do,
(02:33):
but strategy is about choice at the end of the day.
So it's really deciding with the board what are we
going to be going forward. And I think, you know,
the bones of this business are absolutely really strong, so
really good foundation to grow farm. So I'm very excited
about what that looks like.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
Yeah, and I know here you say it's about from
being reactive to proactive, key kind of change there, you know.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
I mean I look around this business and you know,
when your hear is on fire and you're running around
like a mad person. You're not. You're not taking the
time to think purely because you can't, and you know
when you're just having to know you've got to fix
the problem, you've got to do a root cause analysis.
All of that time and energy is important for that
period of time, but it doesn't allow you to look forward.
(03:20):
And I think that's the big shift. I want the
whole business to go on. So they've actually got the
time to think about how do we you know, what
do we look like, and how do we execute that
a bit better so we don't have to be reactive.
So yeah, that's that's the journey wrong Hamish, yep.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
So when you when you go and slice three hundred
and seven millions of debt, three hundred and seven million
dollars of debt with the sale of those North Island
assets to add it, how much breathing space does that create?
Speaker 3 (03:46):
How much time does that give you?
Speaker 1 (03:47):
As opposed to as you say, flying around like a
you know something or other something or other.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
Yeah, look at I mean, it's we've carried a lot
of debt. The main the thing with data is that
it's ultimately is just money. And what that really costs
you is I mean you've got to spend time with
you know, instead of talking to one banker, you've probably
got ten of them in the room, so that takes
a bit more coffee to get through. But aside from there,
it just it gives you the space that you can
survive as a business. I mean twelve months ago, you
(04:15):
know the board we're having weekly daily meetings just about
around survival. So it does give you that breathing space
and it allows us to look at what we're going
to do and where we're going to invest that money
going forward. So it's yeah, I mean being having very
little data is certainly a good thing in the dairy industry.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
So the subsidiary Dairy Wicks tell me just a little
bit more about that. That's obviously performs pretty well and
as a proactive business.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
Yeah, absolutely, it's a predominantly a consumer business, very proactive.
Tim Carter leads that he's done a fantastic job over
many years leading that business and he's got a great
team of people around him and you know they've got
the Dairy Works brand in Alpine and Talbot Forest and
they're mainly focused on consumer in New Zealand, a little
bit of food service as well branching out into Australia
(05:01):
and you know, good stable business with good profits and
for me it's really exciting. They've got a great opportunity
to continue to grow that business.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
So you've been there since in the role of CEO
since May, Richard, you said March would be about when
you'd really like to have your your finger on the pulse.
S uff we had another conversation around then you'd feel
confident that you'd have a few more ducks in a row.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
Yeah, I absolutely no. By then, you know where we're
set in terms of how we've delivered against our operational
stability for the next six months and really have a
view of what the next sort of three to five
years is going to look like.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
You don't come to this as a rookie, Richard, obviously,
you know, you have your You've had experience with Westland.
You were there at a time of great transformation then
and you know, and also before that Meraca up in
Central North Island. You know you've been pretty hands on
for quite some time.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
Yeah, yeah, look I have. I mean I cut my
first three years that open country prior to that, so
I think I mean, I've been involved in building factories.
Actually someone that asked me the other day, and I
think it's over a billion dollars worth of assets. Over
some of the eighteen years have been involved in the
industry and I've seen a lot of things, and yeah,
so look, I hope I'm well placed to help business
(06:21):
grow and that's certainly my intention. We need we need
a bit of time, but yeah, look, I think the
industry has evolved a lot. It's fragmented with obviously the
foundation of Fonterra in the early two thousands. We've seen
some consolidation over the last few months which has been
really interesting with Mediaca Matara Valley and obviously our divestment
as well. So yeah, it's an interesting and dynamic time
(06:43):
for the dair industry. But that's what's great about it.
You know, we are the backbone of the New Zealand economy.
We'll see the money flowing into rural into urban areas eventually,
it'll take a bit of time, but you know, we're
delivering a huge amount of value for the country. So
it's exciting to be involved in the industry and certainly yeah, yeah,
it's it's incredibly dynamic, which was great fun.
Speaker 3 (07:03):
Back by Auto the country.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
Took the words right out of my mouth, Richard wat
CEO of sin Lay and what you're.
Speaker 3 (07:09):
You're based out of Canterbury, out of cross Church, Richard
is that the.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
Yeah, absolutely, sitting in the office and it doesn't stand
at the moment. I've certainly I'm a big believer in
you know, being with the engine roomors. So yeah, based
in christ Church. Yeah, so no, we love it down here.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
Yeah, but you might have had a cheeky weekend at
the wire rapper. Did you did you anything to report
from there? Did you discover you know, anything that you
might like to report?
Speaker 2 (07:34):
I know, I'll tell you what. It was pretty weird,
but they need a bit more rain up there. It
was actually weird in christ Church. But no, you've got family,
all the all the family and the wire episod try
to get up to mast and still got a bit
of a farming interest up there, So just go and
check on that and make sure my cousin's doing a
good job of looking after it. BC Contracting and put
a bit of a plug into stew. But he's a
(07:54):
he's a great, great character who looks after the farm
for me and does a great job. So now I
always love getting up to Martha.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
Yeah, I think I seem to remember a wife and
the Wire Rapper footy team at some I don't know,
there's some rings a bell.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
Anyway, he was a pretty pretty good footballer. Yep, we've
had a we've had a few, but he was in
the wire for Bush team well.
Speaker 3 (08:17):
The Mighty warre a Wrapper Bushy. Good stuff. Hey, Richard,
good at chat and we will chat again.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
No doubt Jamie will at some stage, or it may
be myself if he decides to sworn off to a
rugby game somewhere. But I really appreciate your time, Richard
Wythe Thank you very much.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
Thanks Amus.
Speaker 3 (08:31):
Cheers cheers,
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