An excellent appointment

Peter Goodfellow announced:

We have confirmed the appointment of Sir Graeme Harrison to the National Party Board of Directors.

Many of you will be familiar with Sir Graeme’s achievements. He brings an impressive and extensive range of personal, commercial, and community experience to the Board of the National Party, and we are excited to welcome him to the team.

Born and educated in Canterbury, Sir Graeme is best known as the founder of ANZCO Foods. He served as its Managing Director for 20 years, and Chairman for 14 years, leading the company to grow into one of New Zealand’s largest meat product exporters, with annual sales of around $1.5 billion and more than 3,000 employees.Sir Graeme is a passionate advocate for rural New Zealand and our primary industries sector, and his strong leadership over the last 30 years has been inspirational to so many Kiwis.

In 2010, Sir Graeme was winner of the Federated Farmers Agribusiness Person of the Year, and in 2011 was made a Knight Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to business.

Sir Graeme has also enjoyed a long history with Lincoln University as an adjunct professor, member of its Council, and in 2012 was conferred an honorary Doctor of Commerce degree. In 2015, he was also awarded the Order of the Rising Sun by The Emperor of Japan in recognition of his contribution to strengthening economic ties between New Zealand and Japan.

That is an impressive appointment. This is the benefit of now allowing the Board to co-opt members. Sir Graeme will bring a record of extremely astute judgement to the board.