The Country 15/01/26: Mike Siermans talks to Hamish McKay

We catch up with the new chief executive of Federated Farmers.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Well, the new CEO of Federated Farmers has had his
head on the job for a couple of months now,
but it's our first chance to sort of catch up
and introduce to you the man at the helm. Mike Servans, get.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
A Mike, get a Hamish. It's lovely to be here.
Thank you for the invite.

Speaker 1 (00:16):
Yeah, good to chat. Right, Okay, so congratulations on the
what's a new role. But you have been you know,
you've had the feet under the table for a little while.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
I have. It's been it's been about three and a
half four months now and I thoroughly enjoyed wishing with
the team here. And yeah, I'm pleased that we've we've
made it official that I am now the CEO.

Speaker 1 (00:38):
It's great, yeah, great stuff. You look, given your background,
why feeds, what's what's the big attraction for that role?
And you come from pharmaceutical and different and a good
variety of sectors, you.

Speaker 2 (00:50):
Know, I guess, I guess early in my career I
sort of worked out that I wanted to work for
an injured ink for one of a better words, you know,
I wanted to do something good for New Zealand and
good for the agricultural sector as well. So I've had
a couple of different jobs, mainly in the pharmaceutical industry,
so that's a pretty hard nosed industry around sales and marketing,

(01:14):
and I see that I come with some fresh eyes
into Federated Farmers to give them some of those new
ideas and to work with the team to move forward
on membership and help policy as well.

Speaker 1 (01:28):
What are some of those ideas given that you would
be fully fully indoctrinated by now that you know that
farming is the backbone of the country.

Speaker 2 (01:35):
Farming is definitely the backbone of the country hamership. So
I come to this looking at how I can add
some real value to Federated Farmers. We are superb on
the advocacy and the policy side, you know, we have
a real strength around looking at the problems and bringing
solutions to government and local and to central government. But

(01:59):
I'm sort of more on that side of membership and
pulling a team together of members that we can continue
to thrive into the future. So my focus is going
to be more around that commercial side and making sure
that people know why they're members festival and then wanting
them to be members with us.

Speaker 1 (02:19):
Yeah, So what is our membership uptake. Like across the country,
the membership uptake is really good. I think because of
the provincial and national focus that we have. We have
a really good spread across the whole country and we're growing.
So we've just had a bit of a growth spirit
just before Christmas about another five hundred members because of

(02:41):
the good advocacy work and because they can see that
when they join us they're actually part of the team
that makes a difference. I can give you an example
of that Hamish the consenting crisis in the South Island.
We had over four thousand people join our petition and
we've made a real different to getting those consents rolled

(03:01):
over for farmers.

Speaker 2 (03:02):
It's a big, big deal.

Speaker 1 (03:04):
Yeah, fantastic. Okay, let's have a conversation twelve months from now,
as if we're having it right now, what impact would
you like to have made by Christmas this year?

Speaker 2 (03:13):
So I'd like to have a really clear understanding of
how the government can increase even further the confidence and farming.
I would like to have a lot more members join
us and help us to understand the issues that they've
got around their different provinces and to actually support us
in numbers as well. So what good looks like to

(03:34):
me is probably around another thousand members to join us
and having clear ideas around bringing that to the government
and having clear policies.

Speaker 1 (03:44):
Yep, no good stuff. Good stuff Farmers on the same
page see sometimes say there's not a rural urban divide.
There's often a bigger rural rural divide. So there's a
challenge for you. Mike, Thank you very much for joining us.
Mike Simmons, the new CEO of Federated Farmers, much apreciated.

Speaker 2 (04:00):
Thanks, Samis Fly Desult