Dr Tom Richardson

Tom has been Chief Executive of AgResearch since September 2010, and has worked in New Zealand science for more than 20 years.

He spent 13 years as a practising scientist and science manager at Scion, followed by three years as their Chief Operating Officer of Science, then five years as their CEO. 

Tom’s experience has led to frequent assignments on advisory boards, external review panels and international science and trade delegations.

His science background is in genetics, and he established the genomics research group at Scion and a spin-out company, SignaGen, which brought high-throughput DNA testing to the New Zealand ag-bio sector.

Tom holds a Bachelor of Arts in Biology from Bucknell University (1984), and a doctorate in Botany from Pennsylvania State University.

In addition to his role as Scion’s CEO, Tom holds a number of science-related directorships including the Foundation for Research, Science and Technology, Future Forests Research Limited and Science New Zealand of which he is also Deputy Chairman.

Professor Warren McNabb

Professor Warren McNabb was appointed Research Director for AgResearch in June 2011. Warren is an Adjunct Professor in the Riddet Institute, Massey University and is a Fellow of the New Zealand Institute of Agricultural and Horticultural Sciences.

Warren joined AgResearch in 1993 as Senior Research Scientist in the Nutrition and Behaviour Group, promoted to Eminent Research Scientist in 2004, then to General Manager of the Food & Textiles Group in 2009.

His recent research has focused on nutrigenomics and nutritional epigenetics, and on food-host-microbial interactions and food for human health and wellbeing.  Warren has authored more than 300 publications including 10 invited plenary papers and seven invited reviews, and he supervises eight PhD students.

Warren completed a B.Ag.Sc (Hons) 1st Class in Animal Science at Massey University in 1986, and a PhD in Animal Science at Massey University in 1990.

Dr Greg Murison

Greg began his career with AgResearch in 2010 as Section Manager of Animal Improvement.

Greg was Chief Scientist at Genesis Research and Development, a collaboration with the University of Auckland, and was one of their founding scientists.

During his time with Genesis, Greg oversaw the development of RNAi therapeutics and gained a sound understanding of science management and progressing scientific discoveries to market.

Andrew McSweeney

Andrew McSweeney was appointed to the newly created role of Shared Services Director in August 2011.

Andrew came to AgResearch from PGG Wrightson Limited as Group General Manager of Human Resources and Corporate Services. 

Prior to this Andrew held executive positions as General Manager Human Resources for ANZ National Bank, Human Resources Manager for Fujitsu and Head of Human Resources for BNZ.

David Godwin

Ellen Dunster

Ellen came to Hamilton to complete her Social Science degree majoring in demography then joined the Department of Labour working predominately with youth identified at risk.

After five years she joined the finance sector and took up her first human resources role with Trustbank, working under a progressive and able Chief Executive who provided opportunity to develop and expand her scope of responsibility. It was also the time of deregulation of New Zealand’s finance sector and Ellen developed a strong commercial interest, actively leading a number of national HR initiatives that aided the company in what was a very competitive and strongly customer orientated business environment.

At this time she also took up a number of regional and national committee roles on both industry and employer related bodies. Following a period of absence from the work force Ellen joined Beattie Rickman as a senior consultant where she enjoyed three years working with a mix of private and public sector businesses around the greater Waikato. Ellen joined AgResearch in the late 1990s and says that working with 600 scientific staff there is never a dull moment.

Dr Phillip Lindsay

Phillip completed a PhD in Chemistry and Computing in 1983 and, apart from two years as a University lecturer, he has worked in the computing field within research organizations since that time. Initially this was in the field of electronic development and over the subsequent period has worked in most IT related positions.

He has had a long-term interest in the development of the Internet and was the foundation chair of the first University/CRI networking group (TuiaNet). He continues this interest today as a member of the board of the NGI society. Dr Lindsay is a member of the NZ Computer Society and the Institute of Directors.

The main emphasis of Phillip’s role as CIO is to ensure that AgResearch uses IT strategically and effectively to help underpin its science and commercial success. This is achieved through contributing to the strategic planning within the organization and through the delivery of an excellent operational and development capability. His major role in facilitating the development of these services is to promote a quality focused culture within Information Services and Campus Services. His current professional interests are Bioinformatics, developing new business opportunities underpinned by our IT services and in developing new information services, where our information professionals (library staff) are an integrated part of our science teams.

Peter Benfell

Peter has an engineering degree and postgraduate diploma in business. He has worked for two major manufacturing companies and was a Science Group Manager at Geological and Nuclear Sciences and more recently Group Manager, Investment Operations at the Foundation for Research, Science and Technology.

He believes the critical issues to be focused on include new farm management systems, land use and intensification, water and air quality, bio control and bio security as well as preparing people to effectively manage and deal with change.