Four candidates have been named to contest two seats on the Fonterra Board of Directors, with voting opening next month.
Incumbent director Cathy Quinn is seeking re-election alongside three new contenders — Jessie Chan, Mark Cox and Peter Moynihan — all announced Monday as independently assessed candidates for the 2026 election.
Quinn has served two terms and currently chairs Fonterra's Disclosure Committee and Strategic Review Committee, which oversaw the sale of the co-operative's Global Consumer business. Outside Fonterra, she chairs Tourism Holdings and sits on the Fletcher Building board. A commercial lawyer for more than three decades at MinterEllisonRuddWatts, she was made an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit in 2016 for services to law and women.
Chan brings agribusiness governance experience with a particular focus on shareholder engagement and the primary sector. She is a director of AgriZero, the government-backed joint venture targeting emissions reduction in agriculture, and was made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit in 2022 for services to dairy and agriculture. A farmer herself, she is a Chartered Fellow of the New Zealand Institute of Directors.
Cox founded Coxco Group, a vertically integrated agribusiness focused on squash exports to Japan and Korea, and Craigmore Sustainables, which now manages more than $1.3 billion in assets across a farming and forestry portfolio exceeding 39,000 hectares. He has stepped back from company operations in recent years and currently runs two farming properties in Canterbury.
Moynihan will be a familiar name in Southland. He is the outgoing chair of The Power Company Limited Group, the Southland electricity network business with $1.1 billion in assets including line companies TPCL and OtagoNet. He also spent 11 years as an elected director of Ravensdown before reaching the maximum tenure, and has a 30-year background in agribusiness banking. He operates a large-scale dairy farming operation across two owned farms and a shareholding interest in a third.
The independent assessment panel — chaired by Mark Verbiest and including Patrick Strange and Dame Therese Walsh — evaluated the candidates against the skills and attributes the board is seeking. Their assessment summaries will be included in voting packs.
Farmers can also stand as non-assessed candidates with support from 35 shareholders. Nominations for that pathway close at noon on Thursday October 1, with the full candidate list published Friday October 2.
Voting packs go out from Monday October 19. Voting closes at 10.30am on Tuesday November 10, with results announced the same day. The election uses first past the post.