Incumbent Director Cathy Quinn, along with Jessie Chan, Mark Cox and Peter Moynihan, have been announced as the Independently Assessed Candidates for the 2026 Fonterra Director election.
This year there are two Board positions up for election. Cathy Quinn has sought re-election and has chosen to participate in the Independent Assessment Process.
Jessie Chan, Mark Cox and Peter Moynihan have also been put forward by the Independent Assessment Panel.
The Panel’s assessment summaries of each Independently Assessed Candidate, relative to the skills and attributes sought, will be included in the voting pack.
Independently Assessed Candidates
The voting pack will also include full candidate statements and biographies. A short introduction from each candidate is provided below.
Cathy Quinn
Quinn is an incumbent elected director at Fonterra and has completed two terms on the Board.
She currently chairs both the Disclosure Committee and the Strategic Review Committee, which oversaw the sale of Fonterra’s Global Consumer business (including her tenure as Chair of the Due Diligence Committee for the potential Initial Public Offering). She was previously Chair of the Long-Term Aspirations Review Committee and Divestment Review Committee.
Along with her Fonterra directorship, her dairy and broader primary sector experience includes as trustee of a trust owning dairy farms of which she is also a director.
Quinn is currently the Chair of Tourism Holdings (a commercial recreational vehicle (RV) company operating in New Zealand, Australian and North American markets) and director of Fletcher Building (building products and infrastructure entity).
She is also a director of Rangatira Limited (a long-term investing company) and a member of the Auckland University Council (the governing body of New Zealand’s largest university).
Prior to her governance career, Quinn was a senior commercial and corporate lawyer at MinterEllisonRuddWatts for over three decades (including eight years as Chair of the Board).
In 2016, she was made an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to the law and women. She is a Chartered Member of the New Zealand Institute of Directors.
Jessie Chan
Chan has held governance roles in the agribusiness and regulatory sectors with a focus on shareholder engagement and advocacy.
In 2022, she was made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to dairy and agriculture. She draws from a farming career and various leadership roles across the primary sector.
Chan is currently a director of AgriZero, the public-private joint venture investment fund focused on emissions reduction in the primary sector (owned by the government, major agribusinesses and banks).
She is also a director of Āmua Innovation (a start-up in the nitrogen fertiliser space, under AgriZero’s portfolio) and the Ngāpuhi Investment Fund (Tupu Tonu), a Crown-owned entity with NZD 166 million in commercial assets.
Chan is a former director of RuralCo (a farming retail co-operative), AgResearch (a previous Crown Research Institute), Ngāi Tahu Farming and the New Zealand Pork Industry Board (statutory industry body supporting pig farmers). Before her governance career, she held various policy, research, environmental sustainability, and advocacy roles across the dairy sector.
She is a Chartered Fellow of the New Zealand Institute of Directors.
Mark Cox
Cox brings career experience across the agricultural sector, including dairy, horticulture, farm systems, export, food processing, funds management and institutional investment.
He is a founder, notably of Coxco Group, a vertically integrated agri-business focused on growing squash for the Japanese and Korean markets, and Craigmore Sustainables, an international investment group that builds and manages New Zealand-based food and fibre businesses.
Cox has held a range of governance roles and is currently an advisory board member of Ngāi Tahu Farming and director of Rakaia Irrigation. He is a former Chair of the St Margaret’s College Foundation and the National Council for Buttercup Squash.
Over his tenure at Craigmore, Cox led significant growth and scaling of the businesses (which now have over NZD 1.3 billion in assets under management and a farming/forestry portfolio over 39,000 ha) and held various leadership roles including Head of Farming and memberships on the General Partner board, Investment Committee and Farming Advisory Committee.
Cox has stepped back from company operations in recent years to focus more on developing his own farming business, which currently holds two properties in Canterbury.
Peter Moynihan
Moynihan has experience in co-operative and community-focused governance roles. Throughout his career, he has developed broad skill sets across financial monitoring and risk mitigation, capital allocation, commercial performance and large-scale infrastructure asset management. He operates a large-scale dairy farming operation (ownership of two farms and shareholding interest in a third).
Moynihan is the outgoing Chair of The Power Company Limited Group (TPCL), an electricity network asset management company in Southland with an asset base of NZD 1.1 billion, which includes the line companies TPCL and OtagoNet, and the management company PowerNet.
As Chair, Moynihan led a restructure and simplified ownership, and reset the company strategy / purpose. He also took a strong lead on health and safety performance across the organisation.
Moynihan was an elected director of Ravensdown for 11 years, retiring after reaching the maximum tenure/number of terms. Before his governance roles, he had a 30+ year career as a senior agribusiness banking executive, with extensive experience building stakeholder relationships across the primary sector and rural communities.
Nominations Process
Shareholders can stand for the Board in two ways: as Independently Assessed Candidates or as Non-Assessed Candidates.
Nominations for Non-Assessed Candidates, where farmers can stand for the Board with the support of 35 different Shareholders, are now open. Nominations close at 12 noon on Thursday, the 1st of October 2026.
The full list of candidates for the Fonterra Board of Directors’ Election, being the Independently Assessed Candidates and any Non-Assessed Candidates, will be announced on Friday, 2 October 2026.
Independent Assessment Panel
The three-member Panel is comprised of Mark Verbiest (Chair of Meridian Energy and Summerset Group Holdings and director of ASB Bank), Patrick Strange (director of Transgrid and previous Chair of Auckland International Airport Limited) and Dame Therese Walsh (Chair of Air New Zealand, ASB Bank and T20 2028 World Cup Limited).
The Panel has a key role in the Fonterra Directors’ Election process as it provides the Co-operative’s Shareholders with an independent assessment of Director candidates who elect to go through the Independent Assessment Process.
Voting Period, Voting Methods and Notification of Election Results
Voting Packs, containing candidate profiles, will be mailed to eligible shareholders from Monday, the 19th ofOctober 2026. Shareholders can vote by internet or post. Voting closes at 10.30am on Tuesday, the 10th of November 2026 with the results being announced later that day. The Fonterra Director election uses First Past the Post voting.
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