Blog: My first week as CEO

I’m coming to the end of my first week as chief executive of AHDB. It’s been great to be able to meet some of the team and to start to get to grips with the many issues we face. 

My initial impression of AHDB - as an organisation full of passionate, knowledgeable and capable people - has been confirmed. Nonetheless, our people have been through very tough times over recent months. Given all the challenges we’ve faced, it's remarkable that the level of service to levy payers has remained so consistently high, and I thank the team for all their hard work and resilience.

Some hard yards remain ahead and it’s desperately sad that we are losing good people. I do, though, think we are at a turning point, where we can start to look to the future with increasing confidence. 

Our programme of change is demonstrating that we have listened to levy payers and are determined to be the best we can be for them. Soon we will be able to say more about precisely how we intend to earn the active support of levy payers and become acknowledged as a critical enabler to farming success (where ‘success’ is defined by the farmers). 

As well as talking to the team and our important external stakeholders about how the future AHDB will look and behave, I have of course, this week, continued the long process of personal learning. I want AHDB to be a place where people develop their capabilities and I am no exception. There is a deep well of knowledge and wisdom across the team and I am already benefitting from the experience and insights around me. Individual staff members have started emailing me with their thoughts and ideas – which I love!

Throughout August and before officially taking up my new role, I spent time visiting farms that are part our Farm Excellence network, seeing first-hand the impact of our work and hearing what our hosts gained from being members of the programme. It also strengthened my belief that over the next few months our single critical priority must be to demonstrate how we make a real difference to farmers and growers. I am looking forward to learning even more through farm visits which I have lined up for later this month and October.

Over the next few weeks, I will continue to champion and embody the kind of culture I believe will best serve AHDB for the future; collaborative, stretching but supportive and based on clear objectives where people want to step forward and take accountability for delivering great results. 

Everything we do must put the levy payer’s voice at its heart; we only succeed if they succeed. I will also continue to be out and about, talking to levy payers and other stakeholders about our great plans for the future and trying to win more and more people over to our cause.

Tim Rycroft, Chief Executive