Lifelong leadership

The peaks and troughs of a life in leadership have prepared Mike Guerin well for his role as CEO of AgForce.

Story + Photos Mandy McKeesick

He is a Kiwi boy championing Queensland agriculture but if you imagine a chief executive officer in the prominent corner office of an ivory tower, then you haven’t met Mike Guerin. As CEO of agricultural advocacy group AgForce, Mike can be found in the trenches. That may be at a crowded desk in an open-plan city office (within poking distance of his colleagues), leaning on a paddock fence chatting to a cane grower, sipping a beer in Charleville or preparing to front a federal court to defend what he believes is right.  To agriculture, he brings a life of leadership.

“Mike has a genuine care and empathy for producers, and he loves getting on the ground,” Belinda Callanan says. Belinda is a cattle and grain producer from the Darling Downs and has been involved with AgForce for 25 years. In that time, she has seen many people come and go. “When Mike first came to AgForce I noted he had a rural background, and I was impressed by how he could communicate and how he could relate to us. I thought, ‘This guy sounds all right; we’ll give him a go’.”

‘Having a go’ could be Mike’s motto. Now 57, his agricultural journey began on the family farm near Blenheim on New Zealand’s South Island, where his wool-proud father and Australian-born mother raised Mike and his brother on 300ha of verdant rolling hills. Though they ran some cattle, sheep were the mainstay. “Dad loved his Merinos; we joked that he almost tucked them into bed with him at night,” Mike says. “And I liked farming. A day in the yards was enjoyable, an honest sport.”