Fran O'Sullivan: Intellectual, social giant will be missed

Craig Norgate had bustling energy and charisma.

Craig Norgate had great foresight and a vision for New Zealand agribusiness that spanned dairy, rural services and the meat industries.

He was also a major risk taker, enabling him to scale the heights of the dairy industry by being appointed chief executive of Taranaki-based Kiwi Co-operative Dairies at just 29, become Fonterra's inaugural chief executive officer (CEO), form Rural Portfolio Investments with Baird McConnon after he was dumped from the top Fonterra role, roll up some leading companies in the NZ rural services industry to form PGG Wrightson but came unstuck when Wrightson couldn't complete an offer for 50 per cent of Silver Fern Farms.

Norgate was always a "man in a hurry", but the rapid pace at which he moved was not always accompanied by timely, painstaking behind-the-scenes work to buttress his deals and make them bulletproof.

A factor that cut short his rural career when he was unable to finesse the Silver Fern deal when Lehman Brothers collapsed was that the equity financing for the deal could not be completed and Wrightson defaulted.

It also led the Fonterra board, then headed by Henry van der Hayden, to replace Norgate with Canadian Andrew Ferrier after his two-year contract was up.

Former Kiwi Co-operative board insiders said they made sure their fast-moving CEO was underpinned at head-office level as the company grew revenues from $285million to $4.4billion when the three-way merger formed Fonterra.

He ran a lean machine at Fonterra as he merged Kiwi Co-operative Dairies and the NZ Dairy Group into one new GlobalCo along with the NZ Dairy Board, which had been the former marketing arm for the New Zealand dairy industry.

A natural enthusiast, he had the energy to grab the reins and drive the merger through its initial tumultuous period to bring the very different cultures together.

At a time when dairy co-operative Fonterra is debating its own future again and undertaking a major restructuring, it's important to recall the Fonterra Norgate led was a vastly different beast from today's major international company. Norgate ran a lean and nimble head office. These days, the bureaucratic structure that successive chief executives have built at today's headquarters in Princes St, Auckland, is being downsized.

Also Norgate based Fonterra's HQ out by Auckland International Airport, believing leadership should be distributed throughout NZ in the company's subsidiaries and offshore.

As with the current restructuring under Fonterra CEO Theo Spierings, management consultants McKinsey and Co were intricately involved when Norgate held the reins.

Industry players yesterday described him an "intellectual and social giant", "lots of fun", "tenacious and persuasive".

Fonterra is now focused on increasing its velocity of change as it tries to be agile in a rapidly changing global dairy market.

There are suggestions out of Fonterra HQ that the "downsizing" that has (so far) been publicly heralded will be much larger than Spierings indicated recently.

The company has held "Big Wednesday" when it began consultation with staff over the new structure. That process ought to be completed in the next week or so.

There will also be changes at senior management level across the company as roles are refocused and rationalised.

It is a difficult time for NZ's largest dairy company with prices at the latest GlobalDairyTrade auction hitting a five-year low.

Norgate had continued to champion the NZ dairy industry after his departure. As a personality, he had bustling energy and charisma and quickly lit up every room he entered.

Norgate told me at a recent function he and his beloved wife, Jane, were about to head off on "their OE". Norgate had stayed home to support his mother after his father, Frank, died suddenly.

There was a new chapter to be written in the Norgate career.

He had hired digs in Richmond and was off to first follow the All Blacks in the Rubgy World Cup then to seek another CEO role in the UK.

He was one of a group of young thruster Kiwi CEOs who came to prominence in the early 2000s: like Theresa Gattung (ex-Telecom), Andrew Grant (ex-McKinsey), Chris Liddell (ex-Carter Holt Harvey) and Scott Perkins (ex-Deutsche Bank).

Norgate also found time to be the first president of the NZUS Council which was set up to get the rock in the road out of the way in NZ's relationship with the US so stronger trading links could be pursued.

His passion for NZ agribusiness, strategic vision and impact will be missed.