Fonterra pleased by Beingmate appointment

The move was announced yesterday following a comprehensive search.

Bao joins Beingmate from Royal FrieslandCampina China, where he was, most recently, Friso chief sales officer and consumer dairy managing director. Prior to this, he was the sales director at Wyeth Nutrition and held senior roles at PepsiCo and Wahaha Food Group.

Positive move​

Fonterra CEO Theo Spierings says the appointment signals an important step in the transformation of Beingmate.

“We know our farmers and unit holders expect a lift in in Beingmate’s performance, so influencing the right transformation steps through our 18% shareholding has been one of our top priorities,”​ Spierings said.

“The appointment of a new and independent GM is the first of three key steps we communicated earlier this year in the Beingmate transformation plan. Now this appointment is made, the next priorities will be for Mr Bao to unlock Beingmate’s distribution network and take the right actions to meet Chinese customers’ preferences for e-commerce.”​

Spierings said there are opportunities to reverse Beingmate’s current performance and added Fonterra looked forward to working with Bao “and seeing Beingmate fulfil its potential.”