Tony Aitken brings a strong background of leadership in people development and delivering business results. A career change saw him specialise in HR for a period of time and he completed his degree whilst working fulltime, graduating in 2015 with a Bachelor of Business Studies from Massey University. He especially enjoys leading teams and helping organisations grow and was part of Synlait’s journey as it grew from 140 staff to over 1000 across 8 years. In 2019 he was named as a finalist for the HRINZ HR Specialist of the year award.
Tony has a talent for imagining the possibilities of the future and taking people on the journey to get there. Tony brings a strengths-based approach to Ruralco, believing that people innately want to do well, and sees his role is to create the culture that enables that, ensuring continuing business success for the co-operative. Tony was GM People & Culture at Ruralco prior to becoming Group CEO.