Deloitte Top 200 awards: Judges’ Recognition Award - John Loughlin

By Graham Skellern

NZ Herald·

6 Dec, 2023 04:00 PM7 mins to read

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Kathryn and John Loughlin have been operating their 16ha boutique Askerne Estate Winery for 30 years, producing 8500 cases a year with 15 per cent exported. Over the years their wine has won 21 trophies and 69 gold medals.

Whether by accident or design, professional director John Loughlin has been “a man for a crisis” during a long and successful governance career.

In a continuing world of corporate restructuring, it started when Loughlin’s role as chief executive of then-listed meat company Richmond became unsettled.

He had been in that

“During that process, the family had established deep roots in the Hawke’s Bay and started a winery (Askerne Estate in Havelock North).

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“They weren’t moving, and I had to find a role based in Hawke’s Bay so as not to disturb the family life,” said Loughlin.

He left Richmond, after resigning, in 2002, and soon turned his attention to the board room. Tranz Rail was looking for additional directors and Loughlin joined the board on the same day that merchant banker Fay Richwhite sold its majority shareholding.

“I didn’t know that was coming,” Loughlin said. He stayed on as a director till 2008 after Toll Holdings took ownership of Tranz Rail. During that time Loughlin, a chartered accountant, spent six months as acting financial officer to sort out its weakening balance sheet.

In 2002 Loughlin also became a director of kiwifruit exporter Zespri and Prism Group, which provided business management software for the printing and graphic arts sector.

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A year later he joined the board of Centralines, the Central Hawke’s Bay electricity distribution company, and then Napier Port — serving there for 11 years with a break of 18 months in between.

“There was a conflict with being a director of Toll and some of the issues became a little sensitive,” said Loughlin. “I felt the port should have been collaborating with rail just as Tauranga was. We weren’t doing that at the time.”

Loughlin became chairman of public-listed Allied Farmers during a tumultuous period of involvement with failed finance companies Hanover and United. He stepped down in 2010 after Allied Farmers own unit Allied Nationwide Finance went into receivership.

By then Loughlin was chairman of Zespri and he had to manage the outbreak of the bacteria disease pseudomonas syringae (Psa), which threatened to destroy the lucrative kiwifruit industry.

“On day one I got the best set of minds in a room and we worked together to figure out what we knew, what we didn’t and what we can learn quickly. I appointed Peter McBride (then deputy chair and now Fonterra chairman) as the point man, and we worked on grower communication and stakeholder management.

“Communicating with the banks was important and we built a relationship of trust. We were confident there would be an answer. We couldn’t wipe out Psa completely, but we learned to live with it,” Loughlin said.

Plant and Food Research worked alongside Zespri and deployed more than 100 staff to fight the disease. New orchard management practices and detection methods were introduced, such as increased spraying and preventing infection ahead of rain (Psa liked those conditions). A new Psa-tolerant cultivar SunGold was established and this proved to be the basis of recovery for the billion-dollar New Zealand kiwifruit industry.

Also at Zespri, Loughlin led the rebuttal against Turners & Growers’ move to deregulate the single desk marketing system. “There was as real focus on making the single desk work for growers and having their backing was critical. Turners & Growers couldn’t get any traction with them.

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“By and large, the majority of growers are sensible but silent. They will only speak if you let them down — and then they will be very direct. We articulated the value and credibility of delivering the single desk.”

Loughlin chaired the Meat Industry Association for six years between 2016-22, and now chairs transport and logistics company Coda Group, apple exporter Rockit Global, Dairy Technology Services, hydroponics supplier Bluelab Corporation, PowerCo and kiwifruit post-harvest operator EastPack.

He has just become a committee member of the Hawke’s Bay Regional Recovery Agency in the aftermath of Cyclone Gabrielle.

“We are co-ordinating the cyclone response to get resilient regional solutions, and what is funded by central and local government and the private sector. We are like an orchestra conductor or sheepherder,” he said.

“We want people to think ‘instead of building back what we had, are there better solutions for tomorrow’. We’ve talked about turning the rail corridor from Napier to Wairoa — it’s hardly used — in to a new road, cutting travel time from two hours to one.

“The one-way Brookfields Bridge (near Hastings) over a wide span of the Tutaekuri River is expensive to fix and instead of rebuilding, wouldn’t it be better to take the expressway forward, two lanes each way. That is in the frame,” Loughlin said.

In a career spanning 21 years, Loughlin has become one of the country’s leading professional directors involved with critical industries. Including his time as general manager of Westpac Investment Management and chief financial officer and chief executive of Richmond, he reckons he’s spent 35 years in board rooms.

“That’s half my life and I’ve seen a lot,” he said. “I’m really interested in making companies perform and how to make investments work for them. I’m interested in the people and the strategy. After some time following an appointment, I will review myself: ‘am I adding value; can I be a strong enough contributor, is it time to move on?’

“A lot of being a director is judgment; in business you can get rewarded for taking risks. It comes down to deciding what risks to take and not to take and how you manage them.”

In giving their Special Award, the Deloitte Top 200 judges said Loughlin had dedicated his career to New Zealand’s agribusiness and infrastructure sectors.

Loughlin said: “I enjoy figuring out how to deliver value whether it’s a superior kiwifruit cultivar, a miniature apple (Rockit), or tender beef with cherry red colour and white fat (Firstlight Foods). The challenge of the global export markets is knowing what the consumers will buy.”

The judging panel said Loughlin is an extremely talented and highly regarded director who relishes digging into companies and helping them reach their full potential.

He particularly excels providing leadership to industries that are challenged. He skilfully guided innovative apple grower Rockit through the impacts of Cyclone Gabrielle, led Zespri through Psa, and provided support to farmers and companies impacted by Covid-19 in his role at the Meat Industry Association.

“John often finds himself chair at companies he first joined as a director, which shows just how effective and well-regarded he is around board tables. It’s no surprise that he’s in high demand for the country’s senior governance roles,” the judges said.

John Loughlin:

Achievements

Present chairman roles

· Coda Group (freight and logistics) since 2020

· Rockit Global (apples) since 2015

· Dairy Technology Services since 2007

· Bluelab (hydroponics) since 2021

· Powerco since 2013

· EastPack (kiwifruit) since 2015 and director since 2014

Past chairman roles

· NZ Meat Industry Association, 2016-22

· Firstlight Foods (wagyu producer), 2005-15