Fonterra announces interim positions in its leadership

NEW ZEALAND – Fonterra Co-operative Group has announced interim changes to the leadership of its Global Ingredients business ahead of Richard Allen, current President Global Ingredients, stepping into Fonterra’s CEO role.

Elisa Giusti, Fonterra’s Executive Vice President Global Ingredients Growth based in Chicago, will assume the role of President Global Ingredients Growth.

Fonterra’s Ingredients risk, pricing and optimisation, innovation, science and technology, and R&D functions will shift reporting line to Elisa.

Gaby Amade, Fonterra’s President Middle East, Africa, Europe & SEA for Global Ingredients based in Dubai, will assume the role of President Global Ingredients Sales and Operations.

Fonterra’s Ingredients teams in Greater China, Americas, Oceania and North Asia will shift reporting line to Gaby. Both Elisa and Gaby will join Fonterra’s Management Team.

Richard Allen, CEO Fonterra, joined Fonterra as a graduate in 2008 and since then his career has spanned in the global supply chain. He led the farmer-facing business Farm Source for 5 years, worked in China as Vice President of our Foodservice business, was the founding CEO of MyMilk, and, more recently, served as President of Atlantic, based in Chicago, responsible for relationships with several of our key global accounts.

The company reported a Group profit after tax of US$161 million ($278 million) in its FY26 Q1 business update.

Former CEO Miles Hurrell said Fonterra’s Total Group earnings for Q1 are in line with this time last year, noting the higher global commodity prices in the period compared to the previous season. 

In FY25 annual results, the company generated US$15.05 billion ($26 billion) in revenue and delivered US$9.38 billion ($16.2 billion) in total cash returns to shareholders.

Reported profit after tax was US$636.6 million ($1.1 billion), equivalent to earnings per share of 65 cents.

This was down slightly on the prior year, reflecting Fonterra’s higher tax expense in FY25 after the Co-op elected not to deduct distributions to farmer shareholders from taxable income and instead attach imputation credits to dividends.

When excluding the costs associated with the Consumer divestment, Fonterra’s normalised earnings per share were 71 cents, in line with last year’s result. 

Return on capital was 10.9%, down from 11.3%, up from 10.0% tax-adjusted. Farmgate Milk Price was NZ $10.16 per kgMS.

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