Speakers

	Nigel Kerin Kerin Poll Merino Stud, “Karuga Park”, Yeoval, NSW Nigel is a passionate stud and commercial Merino breeder from Yeoval, south of Dubbo. The 2008 NSW Farmer of the Year winner has benchmarked his enterprises of Merino breeding, composite sheep breeding, winter cropping and cattle trading over the past seven years, and Merinos consistently come out on top in $/DSE per hectare net return. For more information about Nigel and his operation, visit www.kerinpoll.com.au
	Sean Martyn Managing Director, PrincipleFocus, Coffs Harbour NSW Sean is a management consultant who was instrumental in introducing the cell grazing and holistic farm management revolution into southern Australian agriculture during the early 1990s - despite strong opposition from the agricultural establishment. These innovations have since evolved to 'best practice' status. Sean established the PrincipleFocus brand and operations for the management consultancy in NSW, Victoria, South Australia, and Tasmania. Sean continues to challenge orthodoxy and is focused on new thinking in agricultural, natural resource and business management. He currently specialises in coaching family business leaders both from agriculture and regional small business. The goal is to assist these managers to make good businesses great, assist in growing and replicating successful business, and to facilitate the challenging task of management succession. Sean has a commercial interest in a number of non-agricultural business ventures including retail, manufacturing and funds management. For more information about PrincipleFocus, visit www.principlefocus.com.au
	Sandy McEachern Director/Consultant, Holmes Sackett, Wagga Wagga NSW Sandy has a long history with agriculture and still runs his own farm business. He has previously worked with Rabobank’s Agribusiness Consulting and Research Services and Agribuys, a software company selling procurement software to the perishable food industries in Australia, Europe and the US. Sandy joined the Holmes Sackett team as a consultant in 2002 and in 2007 he became a co-director with John Francis. Areas of expertise include business analysis, benchmarking interpretation, timing of management events, stocking rates, animal health, capital allocation to improvement of livestock, pastures and infrastructure. For more information about Holmes Sackett, visit www.holmessackett.com.au
	Peter Trefort Director of Hillside Meats and WA Q-Lamb Supply Chain Meat and Livestock Australia (MLA) Director Peter is a director of Hillside Meats abattoir at Narrogin, Western Australia, and the WA Q-Lamb Supply Chain, and is a MLA board director. But his connections do not stop there. The respected conference speaker and media commentator has more than 40 years experience in sheep and cattle production as well as management across the supply chain.
	Dr Jason Trompf Lifetime Ewe Management (LTEM) Program co-author, Greta VIC Jason is a wool and lamb producer, an Honorary Research Fellow with the Department of Agricultural Sciences at Latrobe University, and he is the current Chairman of BEST WOOL/BEST LAMB, which delivers economic, environmental and social benefits to wool and sheep meat producers. He co-authored and developed the Lifetime Ewe Management System (LTEM), which involved about 500 producers grouped into 100 groups nationally. Between 2006 and by the end of 2010, more than 220 producers – who collectively manage nearly a million ewes - had completed the LTEM program. LTEM participants increased their whole-farm stocking rates by 14%; increased their lamb marking percentages by 11 to 13%, depending on enterprise type; and decreased annual ewe mortality rates by 43%. Their estimated dollar benefits from LTEM - in terms of increases in number of lambs weaned per hectare and reduced ewe mortality - exceed $10/ewe/year.
	Chris Wilcox Executive Director, National Council of Wool Selling Brokers, Melbourne VIC Chris is recognised as the world’s leading analyst and commentator on the global wool industry, with a career spanning 30 years in economic and market analysis mainly in Australian agribusiness. Chris has 19 years experience and proven results in conducting and guiding economic research, market intelligence, analysis and strategic assessment of key issues in the global wool industry. He has worked on major projects assessing the industrial and consumer markets in China, India, Russia, Japan, Western Europe, the USA and Australia. Chris currently has a range of roles in the global wool industry. He is Executive Director of the National Council of Wool Selling Brokers of Australia, a Director of the Board of the Australian Wool Testing Authority, and Chairman of the International Wool Textile Organisation’s Market Intelligence Committee. In addition, he prepares the International Wool Textile Organisation’s annual Market Information statistics publication, and until recently provided the analytical input to the Australian Wool Production Forecasting Committee, of which he is a member. Chris is the principal of his own business, Poimena Analysis. Chris is Landmark’s wool and livestock economist, and prepares Landmark’s monthly bulletins, the Wool Economic Focus, Corporate Sheepmeat Focus and Corporate Cattle Focus. He also prepares monthly, biannual and annual economic and analysis bulletins, articles and reports for other clients in Australia, the United States of America and Europe. Until 2008, Chris was Chief Economist at The Woolmark Company and the Australian Wool Corporation for 16 years, in which he led the forecasting of world prices and production for the world wool industry. He was Director of Research with a Committee of the Victorian Parliament in Australia between 1988 and 1992 and, before that, an economist with the Victorian Department of Agriculture for nine years. He is a graduate of La Trobe University, with a Masters of Agricultural Science (Economics) and a Bachelor of Agricultural Science (Honours).