AuctionsPlus' South African-born chief financial and operations officer, Wyn Snyman, will take the helm as chief executive officer at the big online farm sector marketing platform.
He succeeds Angus Street who was in the role for five years until last month when he moved across the Tasman to become CEO of the New Zealand Merino Company.
Wyn Snyman - whose first name is a legacy of his grandfather's Dutch heritage, and pronounced "Vane" - has been heavily involved with AuctionsPlus' growth strategy and platform integrity, particularly during the company's COVID pandemic boom in online livestock sales activity.
Originally a "numbers man", he arrived in Australia to join the digital marketing service as its chief financial officer in late 2019.
Within months of starting at AuctionsPlus, COVID lockdowns had paralysed face to face livestock and machinery sales across Australia and the pressure ramped up for the business to absorb an explosion in online vendor listings.
Mr Snyman's new job rapidly encompassed co-ordinating cattle sales, daily phone contact with selling agents and handling customer service calls.
Sales turnover tripled on the marketing service platform during the pandemic, putting the online trading system's technical capabilities and the company's relatively modest staffing numbers to the test.
"It was, indeed, a baptism of fire," Mr Snyman said.
"But despite the difficulties involved, you quickly appreciated that AuctionsPlus had a really important role to play as part of the agricultural supply chain and economy."
With the marketing service's staff numbers also more than doubled to handle the workload, his finance responsibilities were expanded in 2020 to head up company operations and manage its integrity and people and culture responsibilities.
Before immigrating to Australia Mr Snyman worked with financial services giant PwC in South Africa and the US, and then as African CFO with the travel insurance division of French-owned Europ Assistance.
Wyn is known within AuctionsPlus for his collaborative leadership style and his ability to translate strategy into practical solutions
- Kelly Freeman, AuctionsPlus chairman
AuctionsPlus chairman, Kelly Freeman, said Mr Snyman had quickly built a deep understanding of AuctionsPlus, which would position him well as he led it through its next growth phase.
"Wyn is known within AuctionsPlus for his collaborative leadership style and his ability to translate strategy into practical solutions," Mr Freeman said.
"As a board, we look forward to working with Wyn as he drives our strategy of delivering a marketplace that enables Australia's ag sector to market and transact with trust.
"We look forward to our next chapter with Wynand leading the team."
Mr Snyman said although originally a chartered accountant, he relished the move towards more strategy and trust-building responsibilities, and dealing with farmers every day.
"Australian agriculture has been an incredibly welcoming and innovative and forward-looking space to find yourself working," he said.
Although he had some broader family ties with agriculture in South Africa, his work in the industry here had turned out to be far more stimulating, interesting and hands-on than he had initially anticipated.
"I'm looking forward to leading a business which is tied so strongly to an outstanding customer experience," he said.
"I am excited to continue to work with our fantastic team, connecting producers with buyers from across Australia, and redefining the ways in which livestock can be traded."
Enhancing the 35-year-old AuctionsPlus model overseas, particularly NZ, could also be on Mr Snyman's agenda, in the longer term.
Our business model will translate well to NZ, or any country really
- Wyn Snyman, AuctionsPlus
"We are in constant discussions with a major player in the livestock market in NZ and a partnership is a possibility," he said, noting AuctionsPlus already facilitated beef genetics sales with numerous international buyers.
"Our business model will translate well to NZ, or any country really, but in the short term Australian customers are our main focus."
He believed there was plenty of scope to broaden the online service's capabilities in prime livestock markets, including to feedlots and processors.
The platform was focused on enhancing and fine tuning the sort of data on livestock weights, fat scores and other performance characteristics sought by buyers and sellers to expand their existing saleyard or direct to works sale options.
Mr Snyman said selling stock online from their home paddock clearly provided attractive time savings, workplace safety and biosecurity assurances and carbon neutral opportunities for the meat supply chain to embrace.
He also welcomed competition from other emerging online players in the sector such as the FarmGate Auctions vendor-assessed model.
"We're all trying to add value to agricultural trades - we welcome any competition that does that."
Andrew Marshall
Andrew Marshall is the group agribusiness writer for ACM's state agricultural weeklies and websites. He is a former editor at The Land and has worked in various Rural Press group roles in Canberra, North Richmond (NSW) and Toowoomba (Qld).
Andrew Marshall is the group agribusiness writer for ACM's state agricultural weeklies and websites. He is a former editor at The Land and has worked in various Rural Press group roles in Canberra, North Richmond (NSW) and Toowoomba (Qld).
