To back emerging leader Jason Te Brake in 2014, AGMARDT invested $4312. A decade later, he was running $5 billion export business Zespri International.
When Jason Te Brake applied to AGMARDT for $4312 in 2014 to attend the Kellogg Rural Leadership Programme, he was a chartered accountant at AFFCO with clear ambition. A decade later, he was appointed Chief Executive Officer of Zespri International, after an extensive international search. In his first full season as CEO, Zespri topped $5 billion in global kiwifruit sales and returned more than $3 billion directly to New Zealand growers for the first time.
The 2014 Kellogg programme gave Te Brake an extended industry network and leadership development he’d already been building through roles in New Zealand Young Farmers governance. Te Brake chose to examine how well New Zealand food and beverage companies understood their China export markets, interviewing senior management at 11 dairy, red meat and kiwifruit companies. It was early learning in a space that would become central to his career.
Three years later, Te Brake was back, this time as a recipient of the Emerging Primary Industries Leaders Scholarship from AGMARDT and the Ministry for Primary Industries, which sent two recipients annually to Te Hono Stanford Bootcamp, to learn alongside senior primary sector leaders from across New Zealand. (Julia Jones, then at KPMG, was the 2017 co-recipient with Te Brake. Te Hono itself was sponsored by KPMG, MPI, ASB, AGMARDT and NZTE.)
After Miraka, Te Brake joined Zespri in 2020, moving through roles in commercial management, New Zealand supply, then global supply before being appointed Chief Operating Officer in 2023. In that role, he led the industry’s response to significant crop quality challenges, planning and executing the turnaround that produced Zespri’s largest-ever crop. It was that work – described by Zespri’s Chair as delivering “exceptional results based off detailed planning and execution” – that led to his appointment as CEO in July 2024.
When Te Brake talks about the AGMARDT investments, he doesn’t contain the impact to himself. “These investments were made in me at critical points in my career and played a significant role in developing the leader I am within the industry today,” he says. “That allowed me to lift my career and capability, but also the capability of the organisation and the people that I have worked with throughout the sector.”
That multiplier effect, with leadership capability flowing outward from an individual into the organisations and teams they lead, was what AGMARDT’s investment in early-career leaders was designed to generate.
Zespri is now developing a strategy to 2035, focused on continuing to build long-term value for growers and the New Zealand industry. For Te Brake, the case for continued investment in emerging sector leaders is clear: “I think it’s essential that we continue to develop leaders in the industry and are world class in this space, and AGMARDT has a vital role to play in this.”
Grants:
L14008 Kellogg Rural Leadership ($4312), 2014
L17012, Emerging Leaders Scholarship ($20,462 for Ministry For Primary Industries – Jason Te Brake & Julia Jones), 2017