Meat and Livestock Australia will announce two important management appointments tomorrow, both in the global marketing field.

The current manager of MLA’s Meat Standards Australia program, Michael Crowley, will move early next year to a new role as MLA’s regional manager for the Europe/Russia region.

His appointment follows the resignation of Jason Strong, who has accepted a senior management position with the Australian Agricultural Company.

The development follows a recent sequence of redeployments of MLA mid-tier program managers into regional management posts. Former National Livestock Reporting Service manager Aaron Iori is now MLA’s regional manager for Southeast Asia and greater China, while more recently, live export program manager Michael Finucan has taken up a new role as Korea region manager.   

General manager marketing Michael Edmonds said Mr Crowley was a welcome addition to the industry service delivery company’s global marketing team, bringing a wealth of experience to the role from his recent operations within and outside of MLA.

Since joining MLA in 2009 as MSA program manager, Mr Crowley had made a significant contribution to the advancement of the MSA program, working with key industry stakeholders across the supply chain.

“Under his leadership the MSA team has significantly increased MSA throughput, with two million cattle and 3.3 million sheep graded in 2011/12,” Mr Edmonds said. 

Mr Crowley comes from Barraba in northern NSW where his family has a cattle property. He has a Bachelor of Rural Science from UNE Armidale and is currently completing an MBA.

Prior to joining MLA in February 2009 he worked in a range of commercial roles in beef processing and supply chain coordination. More recently he had his own business marketing livestock and working with exporters in developing their supply chains.

Mr Crowley will take up his new post in early January.

In another important appointment, MLA has engaged Andrew Simpson to fill the newly-created role of business manager, global marketing.

Mr Simpson comes to MLA with more than 20 years sales and marketing experience in the red meat industry. Originally raised on a cattle station in the Kimberley region of WA, he graduated with a degree in Agricultural Science from the University of Queensland before spending three years living and working in Japan and China. He speaks fluent Japanese.

On his return to Australia in 1995, he was appointed as a marketing manager within Stockyard Meat Packers’ integrated supply chain, before holding sales and marketing management roles with three other processors – Kilcoy Pastoral, JBS Swift and Stanbroke.

“Mr Simpson has a genuine interest in ensuring the market profile and interests of Australian producers remains protected. In doing so, he most recently served the industry during the live export crisis as cattle policy director for the Queensland state farm organisation, AgForce,” Mr Edmonds said.

The new global marketing business manager role had been created as part of the goal of building efficiency and effectiveness across MLA’s global marketing efforts.

The purpose of the role was to work across all regions, overseeing the implementation of cross-regional planning, programs, projects and resources to optimise resource allocation and achieve better outcomes.

A large export processor spoken to yesterday questioned the need for another level of global marketing management within the service delivery company, given that MLA has already appointed a general manager for global marketing, in Michael Edmonds, to whom Mr Simpson will report.  

Mr Simpson starts his new role on Monday, operating from MLA’s rapidly expanding Brisbane office.