AWI CEO John Roberts at the 2024 annual general meeting.

AUSTRALIAN Wool Innovation has made two key executive appointments internally without advertising the positions or disclosing their impact on the budget.

AWI chief executive officer John Roberts said Scott Carmody has been appointed head of domestic operations and Stephen Hill is now general manager-international.

Mr Roberts would not disclose what the two new positions would cost the grower-levy funded body, but said the overall wages budget for AWI has been significantly cut with the reduction of 20 staff since mid-2023.

Mr Roberts said Scott Carmody moves from being a consultant to a full-time role. Mr Carmody’s LinkedIn page states he has been a trade consultant with AWI for more than 15 years.

“In this new role Scott will take on the direct reports of (general manager, consultation; GM research, and the general manager, grower services & market intelligence).

“In this capacity, Scott will consolidate and champion the considerable efforts of these three business divisions and in doing so provide wool growers and industry with a clear and accessible range of services, research outcomes and updates,” he said.

Mr Roberts said Stephen Hill was promoted internally to oversee the overseas team.

“In this expanded role Stephen will be the conduit between much of overseas operations and head office, ensuring consistency of message is delivered to and from our offices and we achieve full strategic alignment throughout all our activities.

“Additionally, Stephen’s role will deliver an enhanced level of overseas market intelligence to our wool grower levy payers with information that is current and even more informative,” Mr Roberts said.

“There will be a key focus on leveraging and consolidating the considerable contacts and knowledge that our overseas teams possess and deliver more meaningful and digestible information that allows growers to understand market trends and make informed decisions about their wool growing enterprise based on solid and factual market intelligence.

“Both are outstanding appointments with extensive commercial experience in the wool trade here in Australia and overseas,” he said.

Mr Hill is also the current chairman of the Australian Wool Production Forecasting Committee.

Mr Roberts said the appointments are part of a wider restructure to reduce his number of direct reports significantly from 18 to four, allowing him to focus more strategically and deliver better outcomes for wool growers.

“This adjusted structure provides the business with a new and consolidated approach to how we build strategy going forward and collectively develop tactics to enable us to deliver on our objectives.

“The business has been downsizing over the past two years, in line with the downsizing of the Australian wool clip,” Mr Roberts said.

“Within this environment we have seen the number of employees globally drop from 153 in June 2023 to 133 today.

“This has been a challenging and sometimes unnerving time for many within the AWI business, and I have been extremely proud of the team’s ability to remain committed and focussed during such uncertainty,” Mr Roberts said.

“I remain hopeful that the need to downsize further will be limited and we will see wool prices and production increase.

“The nature of our levy system means that when wool growers do it tough so do we,” he said.

“Challenging seasonal conditions and consistent low prices continue to drive primary producers out of merino sheep and into more lucrative farming enterprises, and as a result our revenue suffers, as does our ability to fund projects.

“This new consolidated structure will see us work even more cohesively and effectively to deliver the best possible outcomes for wool growers,” Mr Roberts said.

When asked if the positions were advertised and how, and if not, why not, Mr Roberts said Stephen Hill’s new role is an expansion of his existing responsibilities and so didn’t need to be advertised.

“A professional search firm was used in the recruitment of the head of domestic operations.

“This was a cost effective way of testing the market,” he said.

Mr Roberts was also asked how will these positions potentially improve wool demand, market access or price.

“By improving systems and day to day management of all those areas,” he said.