Richard joins Lincoln Agritech as interim CEO, following the departure of Peter Barrowclough.

His career had been dedicated to research and science that make a difference.

Between 2011 and 2022 Richard was CEO at Manaaki Whenua, a CRI with 450 staff and $100m revenue at the time he left. He was also a director of Toitū Envirocare, New Zealand’s largest carbon emissions certifier and a $15m subsidiary that was created in his team in 2002.

Richard started at Manaaki Whenua in 1995 and over the years did many research jobs, including building its corporate sustainability business and socio-economic research. Before that he was in R&D for 13 years at what was ICI Agrochemicals and is now Syngenta, including three years managing its agricultural research centre in Japan.

Richard’s own research (PhD at Cambridge and postdoc at Imperial College, London) was on insect behaviour at a time when the potential for insect pheromones in agriculture was just being realised.

Richard is now a governance group member of the New Zealand Agricultural Greenhouse Gas Research Centre, having been its interim executive director for four months in 2023, and is on the Pāmu Board’s Sustainability Advisory Panel.