News

US move for CCA’s David Inall

James Nason 20/11/2012

David Inall and Andrew Ogilvie (right) at the RMAC forum in Fremantle last week.Cattle Council of Australia’s executive director David Inall will leave the organisation in January to take up a position in the agri-political sector in the United States.

Beef Central can reveal that he has accepted the position of Senior Vice-President & Director of Operations for United Egg Producers, based in north Atlanta, Georgia.

Mr Inall told Beef Central he was proud of what the national grassfed cattle producer body had achieved in his past seven-and-a-half years as executive director, but believed the current restructure process represented a good opportunity for the organisation to have a fresh start.

Mr Inall said he was approached to join the United Egg Producers in the United States a few months ago and said he was excited by the challenge the opportunity provided.

He will leave Cattle Council of Australia in mid-January.

“Clearly over the last week there are some really important strategic priorities for the Cattle Council to get locked down between now and Christmas and it is extremely important to move fast around the Cattle Council funding and structure debate,” Mr Inall said.

Since joining the Cattle Council of Australia in 2005 Mr Inall has had no shortage of challenges to deal with including the BSE policy change, the introduction of NLIS, the Korean Free Trade Agreement, the Coles-HGP issue, the development of a pasture-fed standard, the emergence of the Global Roundtable for Sustainable Beef and the media tsunami that surrounded last year’s live export crisis.

Mr Inall said that in addition to the high-profile issues, Cattle Council handled a lot of heavy lifting on behalf of the industry in behind-the-scenes issues that producers did not see.

“What a lot of producers don’t see is the myriad of issues that come our way here – things like animal health, environment and welfare, disease preparedness, marketing, market access and trade, food safety, industry systems such as LPA, NLIS, research and development, industry to government issues, macro policy settings such as climate change and of course providing a service to our members.

“It is a fantastically stimulating job when you are dealing with large, macro media and response-issues like the live export issue.

“There have been many significant decisions and policy settings of industry and government issues that I can honestly say that we stayed true to the debate right through.”

So why the move?

“I have been in this position for seven-and-a-half years, there has been a lot of work through in that time. I was approached about this opportunity via an international contact of mine and I have to say, I have been extremely impressed with what I have seen and how United Egg Producers conducts their business,” he said.

“I conducted my own due diligence and I could see they (the UEP) are a similar like-minded group to Cattle Council.

“They deal with issues like animal welfare, environment food safety and government relations, member services, and that is really what I base my career around.

“It is a fascinating and unique opportunity both for me professionally and for the family personally it is something we are really excited about.”

Mr Inall will no doubt be required to draw upon his extensive experience in dealing with animal welfare issues and policies in his new role.

The United States egg industry is currently in the midst of negotiating important legislation that will set new animal welfare standards around chicken and egg production in the US .

The United Egg Producers represents the ownership of approximately 88 percent of the nation's 285 million egg-laying hens.

Mr Inall began his career with the NSW Dairy Farmers Association in 1991, then worked in the live cattle trade with Livecorp and Meat & Livestock Australia before joining Cattle Council of Australia.  

'Excellent service'

CCA president Andrew Ogilvie was quite literally fighting bushfires on his South Australian cattle property when Mr Inall informed the board of his move on Tuesday afternoon, but he took time out to tell Beef Central that the organisation was sad to see Mr Inall go. 

"He is a very talented man and it was on the cards that eventually he would move on, but he has given CCA seven and a half years of excellent service.

"I'm personally pleased for him that he has scored such a great job.

"His ability to deal with political situations and to pick the right course of action has been absolutely exemplary throughout his term."

Mr Ogilvie said Cattle Council of Australia will now advertise for a new executive director to take Mr Inall's place when he leaves in January. 

He said he expected the transition to be smooth. 

“There’s always something going on in Cattle Council, no time is ever a perfect time, but I think we have got our restructure now to a place where most of the hard yakka has been done and we just need to follow through on the process.

“(CCA deputy director) Jed Matz has done most of the work with the restructure so that is going to proceed as planned as per the guidelines and work plan we set out in our meeting in Perth last week.

"A new executive director will be moving into a new structure, and they will have the opportunity to bed the restructure down and contribute to it." 

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