Aryzta has an Irish director again, after a raft of departures that has left the once Irish-dominated board with a Swiss majority following a shareholder revolt.
Cork native Gordon Hardie was elected to the board yesterday along with two other new directors, Jörg Riboni and Hélène Weber-Dubi.
He is the sole Irish director on the Swiss-Irish group’s board. Coming into this year four of 10 Aryzta directors were Irish.
US based Gordon Hardie is also a director of Greencore and is an experienced agri-foods executive.
He holds dual Irish and Australian citizenship, and is a graduate of University College Cork and UCD’s Smurfit Graduate School of Business. He is a former president of global agri-food business Bunge Food & Ingredients.
Shareholders in Aryzta have voted in favour of the majority the proposals put forward by the board.
Three new directors - Gordon Hardie, Jörg Riboni, Hélène Weber-Dubi – were elected at the AGM, which was held without the presences of shareholders due to Covid-19 restrictions.
Shareholders representing in excess of 74pc of shares eligible to vote approved all board proposals, with the exception of the motion from shareholder Lodbrok to re-elect Alejandro Legarda Zaragüeta as member of the board.
The board had proposed to reject this proposal, however Mr Legarda Zaragüeta was re-elected with 62pc of the votes.