Ian White, the CEO of Australian sugar marketing firm Queensland Sugar, will officially be the Canadian Wheat Board’s president and CEO starting March 31.
White will replace Greg Arason, who resumed the chief executive post on an interim basis in late 2006 after the federal government fired previous CEO Adrian Measner. White’s appointment covers a three-year term ending in March 2011.
White has worked at the senior management level at several agribusinesses in Australia, Canada and the U.S., including AgPro Grain, the now-defunct grain handling wing of Saskatchewan Wheat Pool in Alberta and Manitoba. His resume also included stints with Grainco, Defiance Mills, Elders Grain and Queensland Cotton.
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Queensland Sugar markets sugar with a statutory “single desk,” but Australian legislation passed in 2004 exempts raw sugar from that single desk if it’s to be sold in bags for export or to be processed into products such as ethanol or bioplastics.
CWB chairman Ken Ritter, who also chaired the CWB’s executive search committee, said in a federal government news release Wednesday that the board is “confident that Mr. White, with his comprehensive background and experience, will provide strong leadership to the corporation.”
“With the strong support both this government and the CWB have given Mr. White, I trust both will give him the freedom and the tools he will require to work in the interests of western Canadian producers,” Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz said in the same release.
The government’s release said White will provide “strong leadership as the CWB faces a number of challenging issues, including farmers’ desire for change.”
It cited White’s “in-depth understanding of agribusiness with wide-ranging experience in both international and domestic commodity marketing, customer relationships, and grower relations, in both statutory and non-statutory marketing environments.”
