FOR the second time in just under a year WAFarmers, the State’s leading advocate for agriculture, is looking for a new chief executive officer.
Last week the organisation announced Trent Kensett-Smith had resigned to pursue other interests in “the agribusiness sector”.
Mr Kensett-Smith, who maintained a relatively low public profile compared to his predecessor, joined WAFarmers as its chief executive officer last September.
WAFarmers president Tony York announced his appointment and introduced him to guests at last year’s fourth annual Heart of WA gala dinner at HBF Stadium.
This year’s Heart of WA ball is on Saturday, September 1, at the Crown Towers ballroom.
Mr Kensett-Smith was WA business manager for Koch Fertiliser Australia Ltd for about 12 months before joining WAFarmers.
Prior to that, he was an Elders area manager based in Narrogin for more than six years.
He was chosen for the position after a two-month search by the WAFarmers’ board for a person to deliver new skill sets to the organisation.
At the time Mr York said the board was looking for someone to further develop WAFarmers’ commercial interests.
Under previous chief executive officer Stephen Brown – who was there three years – and previous president Dale Park, WAFarmers introduced its own WAFarmersFirst brand of milk and eggs to compete on Coles’ and some IGA supermarket shelves with proprietary brands.
The aim was to generate an income stream from commercial product sales to take some of the operational financing pressure off annual membership subscriptions.
Forty cents from the sale of every two-litre WAFarmersFirst milk or egg carton was returned to the industry.
In a formal announcement of his resignation WAFarmers wished Mr Kensett-Smith well for his future endeavours and said the “process of recruitment for a new CEO” will begin immediately.
