Genetics Australia has the capacity to make such appointment in order to bring specific skills and experience to the board.
Mike Carroll and John Duffield have taken on the roles, bringing experience in finance, project management, board governance and agribusiness.
Mr Duffield and Mr Carroll replace Stuart Horsburgh as specialist non-member director.
An accountant by trade, Mr Duffield is set to retire at the end of the year from his role as senior project manager at Saputo Dairy in Allansford.
He was formerly financial controller of Saputo’s predecessor Warrnambool Cheese and Butter Company and brings finance, strategy and planning experience to the board.
While this is Mr Duffield’s first board appointment, he has held positions on several sporting clubs and community organisations.
He says the opportunity to join the board was timely.
“I’m at the stage in my life where I’m ready for retirement but I don’t want to retire totally,” he said.
“I’ve led a busy life through my work so would like to spend more time with my wife but I want to stay connected to the community and believe I have some skills that could be helpful to Genetics Australia in finance, strategy and planning.”
Mr Duffield’s work has given him a strong association with people from a dairy background.
“I have a fairly good understanding of agriculture and the dairy industry and I’m a community-minded person,” he said.
“I look forward to contributing. Being a board member is not necessarily agreeing with everything but about working with the team to row the boat in the same direction.”
During the past 15 years since leaving NAB where he established and led its agribusiness division, Mr Carroll has served as a non-executive director on more than 15 different boards, all in the food and agribusiness area.
“I have a deep-seated interest in the food and agribusiness sector and the board roles gave me an opportunity to get a deeper understanding of how companies work in those fields,” he said.
He grew up on a family farm, studied ag-science and runs a Derrinallum-based performance-recorded Angus enterprise.
Along with a life-long interest in animal genetics, his experience as a non-executive director covers private and publicly listed companies, investment firms, government boards and not-for-profits, including Warrnambool Cheese and Butter, Meat and Livestock Australia, Paraway Pastoral Company and The Gardiner Foundation.
He says genetics is an exciting area that continues to develop.
“The systems involved in identifying superior genetics have continued to progress a long way and the whole field of genomics is very exciting and allows us to improve the accuracy of assessing genetic merit at a much earlier age and gives us an ability to assess the merit of animals in hard-to-measure traits. Artificial breeding programs have also been refined and are easier to use and the success rates higher. Genetics Australia has a very important role to play in that.”
Genetics Australia chief executive officer Anthony Shelly said the new directors would bring great expertise and experience to the board.
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