KEY POINTS:
Former finance minister Ruth Richardson is taking over the chairmanship of Christchurch "super-sniffer" company Syft Technologies.
Richardson, who joined the board as a director on June 1, will assume the chairmanship in August, taking the reins from the interim chairman, Peter Cox.
Syft started in 2002 as a joint venture between Canterbury University's commercialisation business Canterprise and Breathe Technologies, and was backed by a group of private investors in a bid to commercialise technology which would instantly and accurately detect minute traces of volatile organic compounds.
Syft is Richardson's third board position with a Canterbury exporter: she chairs Jade Software Corporation and is a director of Synlait, a dairy company, set up in opposition to Fonterra to produce niche milkpowders.
- NZPA
