5 Minutes with Tanya
Tanya Houghton started with Farmlands as Chief Executive Officer in late August. The Farmlander caught up with Tanya to reflect on her first few weeks.
spend a few weeks moving into our new
is no matter the Alert Level, you are
home in Christchurch when lockdown
able to access your supplies from us.
hit. With moving off the cards in L4,
The other focus was on connecting
we made the call for me to start early
with the Farmlands team and having
and support the team supporting
regular interactions, in particular with
our shareholders and customers.
our northernmost branches, who
The immediate priority was to ensure our
have endured stricter measures for
customers and our people were aware of
longer. Regular video calls (where the
our trading protocols under Alert Level 4.
Farmlands team grew accustomed to
I appreciate that many of you would have
the ‘big blue door’ of my motel room)
been receiving information from every
helped keep everyone updated.
You joined Farmlands a few weeks earlier than expected, when Alert Level 4 was announced. What were the first few weeks spent doing?
business you traded with! It had been a
the initial reminders we now have the
biggest opportunities for Farmlands?
Alert Level 4 certainly caught me by surprise. I was just getting ready to
ability to be more seamless in changing
The biggest opportunity for Farmlands
between Alert Levels. The key message
is to solidify who we are. There’s an old
while since there had been a lockdown in many parts of the country, so after
You’ve now had more than a month in the role. Where do you see the
saying – ‘get your own house in order
We need to be better at doing what we were created to do – providing an outstanding customer experience, delivering on being a trusted advisor, bringing true competition to the market.” 6 | THE FARMLANDER
before looking outside’. When our co-operative is delivering our core business well – rural services and supplies – our ambitions in other areas will become possible. We need to be better at doing what we were created to do – providing an outstanding customer experience, delivering on being a trusted advisor, bringing true competition to the
Farmlands Co-operative Society Limited | © October 2021. All rights reserved.
WWW.FARMLANDS.CO.NZ
