Grant Miller
Independent Director and Chairperson
Grant Miller is a Selwyn District Councillor who currently chairs the CPWL Audit and Risk Committee. Grant farms a dairy, beef, and cropping enterprise based at Tai Tapu and McQueens Valley. These farms are outside the Scheme area.
Grant has previously been involved in New Zealand commercial banking at a management level and has worked for two large international banks in London.
Since returning to New Zealand, Grant has completed the Fonterra/Massey University Governance development programme. He is a current member of the Fonterra Alumni Programme as well as a Chartered member of the New Zealand Institute of Directors.
Bruce Gemmell
Independent Director
Damon Summerfield
Director
Damon Summerfield has been an arable farmer in Sheffield for 20 years. His property is irrigated by CPWL. Damon is a director and shareholder in Summerfield Farming Co Limited, which owns Shares in the Company. He became a director of CPWL in October 2011.
John Donkers
Director
John Donkers has been a director of CPWL since October 2003 and has been involved in the Central Plains Water initiative since its inception. John was initially a member of the Central Plains Water Steering Committee followed by a period as a Trustee of the Central Plains Water Trust.
John graduated from Lincoln University in 1981 with a degree in Agricultural Science.
After working as a sharemilker for several years, followed by two years working overseas, he returned to New Zealand and held senior management roles with Apple Fields Dairy Company Limited from 1989 to 1992, developing and managing large-scale dairy farms throughout the South Island. John held a project management role with Sealord Shellfish in Nelson, before returning to Canterbury in 1996 where he established the dairy business consultancy Dairy Farm Management Services Limited (DFMS). John remains a part owner of DFMS and continues to work for the business as a consultant.
John’s business interests include shareholdings in, and directorships of a number of companies involved in dairy farming in Canterbury. Several of these farms are shareholders in the CPWL scheme.
John has previously been a board member of Irrigation NZ Inc. and was a member of the Regional Committee of the Canterbury Water Management Strategy for five years from 2010.
Peter Morrison
Director
Stuart Wright
Director
Stuart Wright runs a mixed arable, seed potato and lamb-finishing operation at Sheffield, west of Christchurch. Stuart has been a member of the Ravensdown Board since 2007 and was elected Deputy Chairman in December 2014. He was elected to the CPWL Board in 2019.
Willie Palmer
Director
Willie Palmer grew up in Sheffield and has an interest in an 80-hectare farm in the area that is irrigated from CPWL's Sheffield scheme. He is a commercial litigation lawyer and partner in national law firm Buddle Findlay.
Willie was an original member of both the Central Plains Water Enhancement Steering Committee (2000) and the Central Plains Water Trust (2003). He has been on the CPWL Board since 2005.
