Andrew West | Michael Spaans | Martin Udale | Tony Steele
Michael Spaans - Chairman
Michael Spaans is a dairy farmer from Te Aroha milking 500 cows. He also has interests in dairy farms in the South Island NZ, Chile and the USA.
IWL Governance roles include:
Trustee - Katolyst
Director - Dairy SolutioNZ (NZ) Ltd
Director - Beef SolutioNZ (NZ) Ltd
Michael also acts as a Director on a number of other companies in New Zealand's Agricultural sector. He was on the Fonterra Shareholders' Council since formation in 2001 until 2008 and was part of Fonterra's Governance Development Programme
Andrew West
Dr Andrew West is Head of Strategy for Seales Ltd and was previously Chief Executive of AgResearch, New Zealand’s principal research organisation supporting the country’s dairy, meat and wool industries.
Prior to this he was Executive Chairman of the Tertiary Education Commission, the New Zealand Government’s funding & regulatory agent for every aspect of post-school education. In that role he oversaw the Commission’s establishment and its introduction of a radically new system for investing in university research, the Performance-Based Research Fund. Dr West has also been Chief Executive of the New Zealand Qualifications Authority, the agency that sets educational standards and assesses all secondary school students’ academic performance, and Chief Executive of the Institute of Geological and Nuclear Sciences Ltd, New Zealand’s principal research organisation in earth and planetary sciences.
In the 1990s Dr West led much of the New Zealand Government’s science reforms, designing and then overseeing the creation of both its Ministry and its Foundation for Science, and also its Crown Research Institutes. Dr West has a PhD in ecology and was for many years a research scientist, having published a range of scientific papers. Dr West has commercial interests in ICT and genetics companies.
Martin Udale
Martin has more than 30 years experience in commercial and residential property development and investment in UK, Australia and New Zealand. Prior to moving to New Zealand in 2003 Martin spent 22 years working in the Australian Eastern Seaboard commercial property development and investment markets.
In 2003 Martin moved to New Zealand and joined McConnell Property Ltd as General Manager and then CEO. In the period 2003-2009 he established McConnell Property as a highly regarded business and market leader in New Zealand. For 8 years Prior to that he was Director Corporate Advisory with CRI Australia in Sydney. Martin holds Board and advisory roles with a number of private businesses and is a Board member of the Tamaki Transformation Program and a Trustee for the Auckland community Housing Trust
Tony Steele
Tony is a Chartered Accountant and has had a career in professional practice.
He joined KPMG in 1988 (then named KPMG Peat Marwick). His speciality area was in Business Advisory Services, which included a wide range of commercial and corporate services. He also had responsibility in the practice for Litigation Support services, which involved numerous attendances in the High Court to provide expert evidence.
Tony retired from the Practice in December 2009, after having served 11 years as the Managing Partner of the Hamilton office and a similar term on KPMG’s National Management Board.
Tony’s other independent-director appointments include two large private companies in Hamilton involved in manufacturing and food products respectively, two manufacturing companies in Australia and the local electricity lines company – WEL Networks Ltd.
