Nick Ross

The lure of working for the world’s leading exporter and milk processor was too hard for Nick Ross to resist after completing his business degree at Waikato Management School, majoring in economics.

You can usually find Nick on the hockey field when he's not working - he plays for the New Zealand Black Sticks men's hockey team; and is a former Otago Boys High School student.

“When I was offered a place on the 24-month Fonterra Graduate Programme I jumped at the chance,” says Nick.

"Having six-month rotations in different departments provided me with the variety I needed to grow my knowledge of the company and help me understand the type of business role I would be ideally suited to.”

On finishing the programme, Nick was offered a full-time role in the optimisation planning department; one of the areas he enjoyed the most while he was on his rotation. Since then, he has been promoted several times to his current role as Product Owner - E-commerce & Digital.

Fonterra Ingredients' e-commerce store and customer portal is called myNZMP. Nick’s role is to manage day-to-day operations on this portal to keep things running smoothly. He also acts as a conduit between customers, sales teams and the central project team to understand customers' needs and prioritise build and delivery through active management of the project backlog.

“Being in an area of the business that works continuously to deliver incremental value in such a volatile market is an exciting environment to be in and a great challenge,” he says.

Nick credits the analytical and business skills he honed at Waikato Management School for securing a career that he enjoys so much.

“While studying, I became interested in understanding the dynamics of business and the economy, and the more I learnt about it, the more I discovered how economics can be applied to so many facets of everyday life," says Nick.