The Country 18/12/25: Alison Shanks talks to Jamie Mackay

From high-performance sport to a high-performance Ag Tech company, we talk to a former world champion cyclist about her transition from the track to tracking cows with Halter.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Tomorrow on the Country, we will announce our ag Person
of the Year. One of the popular nominees has been
Craig Piggott, Yeah, the guy who started out in rocket
Lab and is of course now the founder and chief
executive of Halter. Haven't got him on the show today,
but we've got the next best thing, a bit of
a celebrity Halter person, that's what I'll call her, Allison Shanks,

(00:20):
world champion cyclist these days working for Halter. Allie, great
to have you on the Country. How did you make
the change? How did this come about?

Speaker 2 (00:30):
Yeah, it's a bit of a big change from sport
into egg But if I'm perfectly honest, it probably was
last year and I had that little inkling of like
maybe the grass is green, are over and ather, you know,
And I was like, far out, I can't be thinking that.
When you've worn the silver fern on your chest and
you've heard the national anthem playing for your country, you know,

(00:52):
it's a deep sense of pride. And I was just like,
how do I help to ensure New Zealand prospers as
a country? And being here in the heart of the
White Kadow. I guess they got drawn into that egg space,
It's like, yeah, this is where like, this is what
New Zealand's all about. And then found Halter and was like, man,
this is such a high performing, fast paced, I guess

(01:15):
a team and wanted to be part of it.

Speaker 1 (01:17):
Well, and you've got a good background or a tertiary
education background to do a job like this. You've got
a Becom's Honors in marketing. You've also got a Bachelor
of Science and human nutrition from your Dunedin days Allison
Shanks or Ali Shanks. So I guess human nutrition's pretty
similar to cow nutrition. Mind you. They've got four stomachs,

(01:38):
We've got one.

Speaker 2 (01:40):
Yeah, yeah, And I think you know, there's suddenly been
a lot of transferable skills. I really look at it
from a performance model perspective, and so within cyclaying and
within high performance, it was very much about data analytics.
How do we understand the data and then make performance

(02:00):
decisions accordingly. And that's really what Halter enables on farm
as well, for us to have those performance conversations. And
I think it's about data as knowledge and knowledge as
power to be able to make informed decisions. And I
suppose that's sort of the performance leans that I bring
from hyper sport into this role with Halter.

Speaker 1 (02:19):
You're now living in Cambridge. As you said, of course
that's a high performance area when it comes to sport.
But you're a delead and girl. Did you have an
egg background at all?

Speaker 2 (02:29):
No, I haven't. Actually, I guess my only touch point
into farming was you know, everyone's got an uncle Uncle
Brian and Clydevale on the sheep and beef farm and
now my cousin Gareth is running that farm, and so
that was I guess my childhood touch point of farming.
But no, I've certainly been learning a new industry and
I am loving it. It's been such a privilege. I

(02:51):
suppose to get out and sit down with farmers face
to face, hear their farming story, understand their performance model,
understand their farming system and look at how we can
pull the different levers. I suppose of the terms of
the features that Holter provides to really unlock an O
performance on farm.

Speaker 1 (03:12):
Holter has just recently cracked Australia. I think you've signed
up your first farm because there were legislative restrictions over
there until very recently.

Speaker 2 (03:22):
Yeah, it's super exciting. Obviously we've just opened up in
Victoria and New South Wales. That's been enabled by a
legislative change. So previously, yeah, we weren't able to go
into that market. It's a legislative change that sort of
hung over from the seventies where virtual fencing was banned,
and so Holter's really led the charge over there, you know,

(03:45):
to unlock that market and really step into the performance
space on farm in Australia. We've called our first farm
in New South Wales at the weekend and there's a
massive market over there that we're excited to be able
to go into in twenty twenty six.

Speaker 1 (04:01):
Yeah, and of course Holton not only the dairy industry
but the beef industry. Huge opportunities there. As I said,
you're famous, world famous for winning two world titles in
the three thousand meter individual pursuit. You want a Commonwealth
Games title as well. You're all set to win in
London in twenty twelve Alie Shanks, and then they changed

(04:23):
the rules. He got rid of your event. Does it
still grind your gears? Oh?

Speaker 2 (04:28):
You know, yeah, I suppose it's that little chip on
your shoulder, but those yeah, it's those things that are
like totally out of your control, and I mean London
was still amazing experience with that woman's team pursuit. But
I don't know. I suppose it's about adaptability, isn't it
and reinventing yourself and yeah you look back on that,

(04:49):
but hey it's one chapter and yeah, onto the next thing.

Speaker 1 (04:53):
Now, well you've certainly reinvented yourself. Alison Shanks, great to
catch up, good Luck. I know you'll go great guns
just like you did on the cycling track in the velodrome,
you'll do equally well. Worth Halter, You've got a great product.
Good luck, and we'll eagerly await to see if Craig
Piggott is our ag Person of the on tomorrow's show.

Speaker 2 (05:10):
Go well, Allie, Thanks Jamie, Merry Christmas.