Who got that job?

Were you one of the people who applied for this job and wondered who got it?

Job title: General manager, health and nutrition division, New Zealand Milk Products.

Patrick Geals is out to "milk the value of milk", overseeing work into developing new products from its constituent parts.

He is excited by the "enormous potential" of New Zealand Milk Products' newly created health and nutrition division. NZMP is the world's largest dairy ingredients company and is the "cow-to-customer" manufacturing, sales and marketing arm of Fonterra.

"From foods to bioactive pharmaceuticals, there's a great array of opportunities," Geals says.

High-priority areas of interest are bone health, immunology, complementary health products and modified milk.

An example of a flourishing earlier product is a milk from cows that have been immunised to give them - and their milk - higher levels of disease-resistant immunoglobulin. It has been hugely successful, says Geals, and is a big export earner.

Geals is probably one of few leaders in business with a zoology degree. He says training in physiology, biology and biochemistry has been very useful despite the sales and marketing focus of his 20-year career in pharmaceuticals.

Geals - a "Scottish Highlander" - has been in this country with his New Zealand-born wife and two children for seven years.