Ben and his wife Vanessa (along with their three children) milk 1,500 cows on three farms near Waverley in South Taranaki.
Prior to becoming a dairy farmer in 2005, Ben was a financial analyst in Sydney specialising in publicly listed mining companies. While working in the finance sector, he completed the three year CFA (Chartered Financial Analyst) programme in 2003.
Ben was elected to the Fonterra Shareholders’ Council in 2016 and completed the Fonterra Governance Development Programme in 2017. Until 2017, Ben was the Chair, for seven years, of the West Coast Lessees Association, which represents the interests of around 300 leaseholders of PKW land in Taranaki.