ANZCO Foods CE finds real value in Company Directors’ Course

ANZCO Foods group chief executive Peter Conley has many years of governance experience and is a member of boards around the globe, but he still found value in undertaking the Institute of Director’s Company Directors’ Course (CDC).

“I found it beneficial; it built on my governance knowledge,” says Peter, who participated in the CDC in Queenstown in 2023.

“ANZCO has very good independent professional directors, so I have been fortunate to have had fantastic mentors and that is ongoing.”

“But I hadn’t had any formal development or training around the boardroom, so I wanted to be able to put some independent structure around that too. [I wanted] to see what I did know and did not know and where there might be gaps.”

Peter has more than 30 years’ experience in the red meat sector, including managing ANZCO’s operations in North America for five years. He became CEO of ANZCO Harvest in 2013 and Group CEO in 2017.  

He is on the board of three ANZCO joint ventures, Taranaki Bio-Extracts, SBT Marketing and the New Zealand Lamb Company, and businesses ANZCO works with in China, Japan, the UK, Australia, Germany and Belgium.

At the time he took the CDC course, he had also just been appointed as a director of Beef + Lamb New Zealand and the NZ Meat Board.

“I had always been involved with privately-held commercial entities and that was my first exposure to a levy board or  a not-for-profit,” he says.

“So, I wanted to get a broader perspective on governance, governance challenges and how other businesses work. That was another key motivation for doing the course.”

The five-and-a-half-day CDC is the benchmark for directors and senior leaders reporting to boards with a focus on improving decision-making ability in the boardroom.

It explores the director’s roles and responsibilities and includes daily board simulation exercises, bringing case studies to life to highlight the unpredictable nature of business and the human nature of directorships.

Attendees report benefits beyond governance skill building, particularly the development of strong governance networks, personal growth and confidence in their directorships.

Peter says he found the diversity of those participating, from across a wide variety of business and governance roles, a valuable part of the programme.

“Just to sit with people that were on the course and understand their governance issues. For instance, the challenges that not-for-profits face. I had probably taken some of that stuff for granted and it is very different to running a commercial entity.”

Topics covered on the course include best practice corporate governance, strategy in the boardroom, finance and the board’s role, directors and the law, board dynamics and culture, and risk governance.

The programme is a simulated board exercise. Participants work with four to five other board members addressing a scenario such as company solvency. Then, in the afternoons, each group tests their assumptions and decisions with the full group and compares them to genuine New Zealand case studies.

“In terms of learning, for me it was more around enforcement of the importance of good governance,” says Peter. “The course has definitely made me stop and think about what that looks like a lot more.

“The role of the director in leading the business was also an important takeaway and the split around governance and management and making sure that the directors and CEO in the business act as one.

“Also, the importance of the strength of good communication, at board level and between the board and the organisation.”

Peter says the course also increased his understanding of how building an effective board is so important.

“I have been lucky to have very good mentors and to have joined very good boards – the structure of ANZCO allows that.

“But it made me understand the challenges other businesses can have around that and I saw there were important learnings for people on the course around building and delivering effective boards.

“Other takeaways were the importance of reaffirming key competencies, asking the right questions balanced by the right level of business acumen and board skills matrix work. That was very useful for me and something I have used for boards I am involved in as we look at what we might need in the future.”

Peter sees good governance as critical to holding organisations to account.

“It ensures more diversity around the skills that the board can bring to the wider business. It supports the organisation’s values and culture and helps set the strategy for the organisation.

“A board needs a really good understanding of the business and its risks, and to have oversight of that and ensure it is appropriately controlled within the business.”

He also sees continued professional development as important for directors.

“I try to do some activities around professional development every year. I’d had the IoD course on my radar for the past four years but, with the pandemic and other things, had ended up deferring.

“If you are in important roles and aspire to do things, then you need to be appropriately resourced and professional development helps you to do that.

“That saying ‘you don’t know what you don’t know’ is very true. Professional development opens you to a world of wider experiences and perspectives and also helps with self-development and awareness.

“When you have people coming on a governance journey, not all will have had experience of being associated with boards for long periods of time.

“Courses like this are very important to anyone involved in governance or with a governance role or working closely with a board. I enjoyed it, it was a very good balance.”