He was born and raised three kilometres down State Highway 26 from Tatuanui, at Waitoa, where his father Claude was a site manager for New Zealand Dairy Group.
He used to grudgingly observe that Tatua regularly exceeded NZDG’s payout and when the younger Greaney joined Tatua in 2010 he said “They have always been a good company”.
Waitoa, now a UHT citadel in Fonterra’s empire, is well within the 12km radius covering Tatua’s 100-plus supply farm catchment, from which the much smaller co-operative drew its familial strength.
“I went to Waitoa Primary, along with NZDG employees’ and farmers’ children and then to St John’s College, Cambridge, past the plant of the ‘other company’ on the bus every day.”
After gaining a business and finance degree at Waikato University Greaney spent four years mining in Western Australia before returning home and getting his first job in the dairy industry.
That was as a packing operator in the NZDG Te Awamutu butter plant, from which he progressed to supervisor then plant manager.
Greaney then joined the Dairy Board in Wellington as an analyst before being posted to joint venture plant management in Saudi Arabia for five years from 2001 to 2006.
While never a process operator or engineer, he learned it was not necessary to know everything about dairy processing but to manage well and have confidence in the people around him.
He was promoted first to operations manager then general manager of the Saudi joint venture, with 350 employees and its reach into surrounding Middle Eastern and African markets.
The employer’s name changed to Fonterra and Greaney then spent four years in Singapore for Fonterra Brands, Asia, Middle East and Africa, as divisional operations general manager.
With wife Paula, a teacher, and young son Nick, the lure of home was strong in 2010 when Tatua was recruiting an operations general manager as number two to chief executive Paul McGilvary, now just retired after eight years in the top job.
At this month’s annual meeting Tatua chairman Stephen Allen said “After a professional, rigorous yet sensitive recruitment process, he was delighted to announce that one of our own people” had been appointed chief executive.
Therefore Greaney’s appointment coincided with McGilvray’s departure as a highly respected chief executive.
“Tatua is a family-oriented NZ company with roots in the local community, yet with global opportunities.
“A seamless transition of leadership will provide confidence and stability for our customers, our staff and our shareholder families,” Allen said.
Greaney said he was confident in his experience in technology and marketing, both operational and commercial, as the platform for the large and broad role before him.
“I feel very lucky and privileged to have had the dairy industry career I have had and have been very well supported by the Tatua shareholders.”
Did he envisage further changes to the already complex and highly tuned single-site dairy processor?
“We produce a mixture of bulk ingredients and value-add products – we can invest in a targeted way to turn more milk into higher-value products and take our payouts still further away from commodity returns.”
