CSB - Andrew Murray - Fonterra Chief Financial Officer

Catching up with the newly appointed Chief Financial Officer for the Co-op. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Well on the show. Now it's time to catch up
with the team at FONTIRA, and joining us today is
Andrew Murray, chief Financial Officer. Andrew, Good morning and welcome
to the show.

Speaker 2 (00:10):
Hi Ryan, thanks for having me on the show. Actually,
it's really great to be here.

Speaker 1 (00:13):
Hell, I guess, welcome to New Zealand. I guess how
long have you been here? Oh?

Speaker 2 (00:17):
I must be near enough three weeks now. So you know,
I'm a local, I think.

Speaker 1 (00:21):
And with a name like Andrew Murray, do you get
a bit of stick with a name like that.

Speaker 2 (00:26):
I mean, there is a certain tennis player who might
be slightly more famous than I am, but you know
I don't talk about it too much.

Speaker 1 (00:32):
Okay, Well, let's talk about your role as Fontira's Chief
Financial Officer, which you were appointed to earlier this month.
I know it's only been a couple of weeks, but
how's it going so far? Oh?

Speaker 2 (00:41):
Look, you know there's something quite neat about starting the
role at the beginning of a new financial year. You know,
that's kind of nice, but it also means, you know,
busy time. We're wrapping up around your results for the
year that's just ended, and you know, there's never a
shortage of activity at Fonterra. But it's an exciting time
right that the co op is in really good shape.
You know, there's always room to improve and that's what

(01:02):
we're focusing on. But yeah, it's a really exciting.

Speaker 1 (01:05):
Time to join. And then your background, I'm guessing with
your accent you grew up somewhere in Scotland.

Speaker 2 (01:11):
Yeah, I did, indeed, Glasgow born and bred. I spent
probably about fifteen years living across the ditch in Melbourne
and four years in Singapore. So yeah, believe it or not,
this is actually the easier to understand version of the accent,
a little bit softer than it used to be. From
a work perspective, I think my background's mostly in consumer
goods and agri business. So I spent many years at

(01:34):
a Monaliese International, so you might know that Cadbury Chocolate
and other such, you know, just in various roles there
across sort of Australia and New Zealand, Asia, Middle East.
And then just prior to joining the co op, I
was chief financial officer at sim Port Australia, which is
a market leader in vegetable and potato processing, so I
was sort of started into the egg side of things

(01:54):
there and then I've been with the co oup now
for about eighteen months. So prior to that this role,
I was in the global markets business. So yeah, it's
been an exciting it's been an exciting a couple of months.

Speaker 1 (02:05):
Well, it's great to have you here some obviously some
very good experience here. What are you most excited about
in your new role at Fontira?

Speaker 2 (02:11):
Oh, look that I think there's a lot to be
excited about at the co op at the moment. You know,
from my perspective, for Terra's in great financial position at
the moment. We've with a really strong balance sheet and
that's you know, it's giving us that opportunity at the
moment to just really look at what our strategy for
the future is. You know, as an example, we recently
announced the process to explode the investment of the you know,
the consumer and the Australia and Tri Lanka businesses. You know,

(02:34):
that's looking at how, you know, how can we focus
on growing value more through the ingredients and food service.
But it also gives that fletibility to well what do
we choose to invest in and what does our innovation
papling look like? You know, those are real opportunities for
the future and it's about sort of getting that long
term value creation and so it's a really good thing
to be able to, you know, shape what that looks like.

(02:57):
So you know, that's I think that's one thing I'm
really excited about. The second thing probably, you know, I
really want to get out and actually meet more of
our people. I'm going to be on the road with
Farmers in late September for the annual Results roadshow, so
that should be a bit of fun. I was fortunate
enough to do that last year, and I'm going to
be in a different part of New Zealand this year,
so excited about that. I've not yet been to the

(03:17):
South Island though, so that's going to be my next protocol.

Speaker 1 (03:19):
I think fantastic. Well you'll love it down south, that's
for sure. Hi Andrew, thank you for joining us today.
I know you're busy and it's great to have you
on board. Thanks so much.

Speaker 2 (03:27):
Thank you, Brian, it's been a pleasure to join you today.

Speaker 1 (03:30):
Thank you.