Marcus Oldham College has awarded its latest Graduate of Excellence Award to 1994 farm management graduate turned international agribusiness identity, Andrew Slatter.
Mr Slatter, returned home to Australia from Singapore early last year to take up his current job as chief financial officer of the Australian Agricultural Company (AACo) based in Brisbane.
Since graduating from the Geelong-based agricultural and farm management training college he has spent 25 years corporate agribusiness across Australia and throughout Asia, gaining expertise in global agri-food supply-chain financing.
Before joining AACo he was head of agribusiness for Asia for the ANZ Banking Group, accountable for the bank's institutional portfolio across the region.
Mr Slatter's team looked after large corporate customers growing, storing, trading and processing soft commodities across Asia, including massive aquaculture operations in the Mekong Delta, soybean crushing businesses in India and huge dairy farms establishing in China. Prior to moving overseas he had worked with ANZ in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane; the managed investment fund Orchard Funds Management, and between 1997 to 2002 was with Elders' risk management and international trading divisions including managing its Japan business, where he developed Elders' branded beef programs.
That early meat industry experience and his various financial and trading roles served as valuable steps towards his current top level job at AACo, which owns and operates a strategic balance of properties, feedlots and farms over 7 million hectares in Queensland and the Northern Territory.
It specialises in grass fed beef, grain fed beef and Wagyu beef production and runs Australia's largest herd of Wagyu cattle, producing high grade Wagyu beef which is exported around the world.
Originally from South Australia, Mr Slatter began his career as a jackeroo in the NSW Riverina, and also holds Masters' degrees in Agriculture (Economics) and Applied Finance from Sydney and Macquarie Universities respectively.
