Dairy-Export Seasonal Liquidity Leader

The mandate

The exporter entered peak milk collection with supplier payout commitments calibrated to stronger commodity prices and faster Asian receipts. Vessel rollovers then extended inventory days, two distributors disputed documentation and margin calls on currency hedges absorbed a reserve intended for processing costs. The permanent treasurer departed during lender negotiations, leaving forecasts owned by separate commercial, supply and finance teams. The immediate executive gap is a single decision-maker able to protect farmer payments, production continuity and covenant headroom without concealing the economic cost of short-term cash actions.

During the first thirty days, the leader must establish a daily cash-and-headroom room, reconcile tonnes and contract status to collectible receipts, classify inventory by saleability and determine which hedge calls, milk payouts, freight invoices and tax payments are immovable. By day sixty, the board requires a downside funding case spanning further vessel delay, customer deductions, lower auction prices, warehouse congestion and adverse New Zealand-dollar movement. The first ninety-day window must also produce negotiated lender information, a defensible draw sequence and operating triggers before the seasonal cash trough.

Decision rights include approving cash priorities within the board’s policy, directing forecast assumptions, setting customer escalation, choosing inventory-finance draws within signed facilities and requiring commercial owners to evidence exceptions. Borrowing beyond committed limits, changes to the milk-price methodology, hedge-policy amendments, asset sales and any farmer-payment deferral remain board decisions. The leader will chair the liquidity room and issue one version of projected sources, uses and constraint breaches.

The assignment must leave a permanent capability, not a heroic spreadsheet. The interim will recruit or prepare the incoming treasury head, document the tonnes-to-cash bridge, embed named owners for shipping documents and disputes, test the lender reporting calendar and run two observed weekly cycles before handover. A closure memorandum will state residual facility, covenant, customer and seasonal risks, decisions already made and conditions that could invalidate the successor’s base forecast.

The remit excludes commodity trading, sales-price approval, milk-quality decisions, factory scheduling, tax opinions, derivative dealing outside existing mandates and renegotiation of cooperative constitutional rights. External counsel, banks and hedge counterparties retain their respective duties. The leader may expose economic consequences and escalate failed controls but cannot use liquidity pressure to override supplier contracts, suppress credit losses or alter accounting recognition.

Why this seat is open

The departure landed at the one point in the production year when cash errors cannot be recovered slowly. Treasury sees bank availability, operations sees powder and chilled inventory, and commercial teams see invoices that may not yet be collectible. The board needs a temporary executive who can join those views, make bounded decisions at pace and transfer a functioning seasonal discipline to the permanent appointee.

What you will own

• Build the daily sources-and-uses view linking milk intake, product yield, inventory status, shipment evidence, receivables and hedge collateral.
• Establish payment priorities that protect farmer obligations, safe processing, essential freight and documented lender conditions during the seasonal trough.
• Reconcile customer disputes and document gaps to collection probability, assigning commercial owners and dated resolution paths.
• Model vessel rollovers, commodity-price downside, foreign-exchange movement, margin calls, inventory congestion and facility availability as connected stresses.
• Lead lender communication, borrowing-base evidence, covenant forecasts and draw sequencing within facilities already approved by the board.
• Set escalation triggers for cash headroom, overdue receipts, unshipped stock, warehouse capacity, counterparty exposure and forecast variance.
• Hand over the liquidity room, forecasting method, control calendar, decision log and unresolved risks through two successor-led operating cycles.

Candidate qualifications

• Has held treasury or finance decision rights through a seasonal cash trough in dairy, food, agriculture or another export commodity chain.
• Can translate physical volume, yield, inventory condition, bills of lading and customer deductions into a reliable cash forecast.
• Understands revolving facilities, borrowing bases, covenants, documentary collection, trade finance and hedge-collateral liquidity.
• Has led sensitive supplier-payment and lender conversations without promising cash that operations or customers cannot substantiate.
• Can distinguish temporary timing pressure from margin loss, doubtful receivables and structurally underfunded working capital.
• Has completed an executive handover during a live liquidity event, leaving controls and accountability that survived the transition.

Non-negotiables

• Can work onsite in Auckland and travel weekly to processing regions plus fortnightly to Tauranga during peak season.
• Brings direct commodity-chain liquidity command; a corporate forecasting background without physical-flow exposure is insufficient.
• Will maintain lender candour and will not defer loss recognition, re-age disputes or manipulate shipment status to create headroom.
• Has no current financial relationship with the exporter’s banks, hedge counterparties, major distributors or competing processors.

1. 49 words maximum. Which physical dairy-flow fact would you verify before trusting a peak-season receivables forecast?
2. 49 words maximum. How would you rank farmer payments, hedge margin and freight when headroom cannot cover all three?
3. 49 words maximum. What evidence would let a successor safely retire the daily liquidity room?