Troy Setter

No herd mentality here

Australian cattleman and agribusiness leader Troy Setter is a big believer in taking opportunities, wherever and whenever they present. When he joined UNE to study Rural Science in 1996, he'd already notched up a year as a jackeroo with the Twynam Agricultural Group on five of its NSW properties, and secured a cadetship to help finance his studies.

Working through his university breaks may have cramped his social calendar, but Robb College life and a variety of extra-curricular activities more than compensated. As well as playing rugby and showing cattle, he was chair of the Young Cattlemen's Union for three years, president of the Rural Science Undergraduates Society and an enthusiastic member of the UNE Intercollegiate Meat Judging Association (ICMJA) team.

"I was lucky to get selected for the Australian ICMJ team that went to the United States to compete and then on to Japan and Korea in 1999-2000, which was a fantastic experience," Troy says.

Now, as CEO of the largest private beef producer in the country - Consolidated Pastoral Company - Troy oversees a company worth an estimated $700 million and an Australian workforce of 180 spread across nine pastoral leases and 3.2 million hectares. Another 600 people are employed in two feedlots in Indonesia, which, he says, directly and indirectly support about 12,000 families.

Troy credits at least some of his success in the red-meat industry to his university experiences.

"With ICMJ we got to do a lot of travel and to develop teamwork, which is important in any business," he says. "There was also the judging and presentation processes, which were really powerful. They helped me to improve my critical thinking and analysis as well as my public speaking.

"Diverse experiences build your character as a person and are really valuable for any organisation that you find yourself working in. They speak to your attitude and energy; even hobbies can demonstrate your capacity.

"Whether it was ICMJ participation or the team sports and social activities so actively encouraged at college, at UNE I learnt the importance of individual responsibility and accountability. The university got the balance of support and mentoring and 'work it out for yourself' just right. You weren't spoon-fed, but nor were you left to drown. I think that strong culture of participation and support has been helpful to my career and some of the other directorships and things I have taken on. And I've employed plenty of UNE graduates myself."

As well as being chairman of the livestock export industry's research and development body LiveCorp, Troy chairs the advisory board for the charity Dolly's Dream, which aims to empower and educate the community to prevent bullying and cyber bullying. It was set up by Kate and Tick Everett, whose daughter died by suicide in 2018.

"Kate and Tick worked with me for a couple of years, so Dolly's death was pretty close to home, but I have other friends and friends of friends who have suffered from online bullying or from a lack of knowledge and awareness about how harmful it can be," Troy says. "CPC has a large team of people living in rural and regional Australia who send their kids to boarding school, and some just don't know about social media and what their kids are exposed to. There have been many who have told us that Dolly's Dream has saved them or their child, so it's really important to me."

So, too, is the responsibility of the meat industry to operate in an ethical fashion, which some people have called into question during recent debates over the export of live cattle. "No industry has a right to exist; we have a responsibility to do things properly and to run economically as well as socially sustainable enterprises," Troy says. "It can be challenging at times, but we have to face into the wind, and if things aren't good enough, then we have to fix them."

After graduating from UNE, Troy did the agribusiness program at the Harvard Business School, and, before joining CPC in 2014, held senior management positions at Torrens Investments, North Australia Cattle Company, Australian Agricultural Company (where he was chief operating officer) and the Killara Feedlot, as well as Twynam. The broad range of expertise he'd developed throughout the beef supply chain -from cropping and grain-fed operations to logistics, trading, marketing, live export and investment - made him the ideal candidate to oversee CPC's recent three-year restructure and sale to British multi-millionaire Guy Hands.

"There are a lot of opportunities with CPC, so we will keep developing and growing our business," Troy says. "We still have considerable amounts of land we will develop for more cattle, both irrigated and dry-land cropping, renewable energy and emissions reduction products. We also have a great business in Indonesia that we will continue to grow."

And to all those fresh graduates out there keen for a future in Australia's meat industry, Troy's advice is simple: get hands-on experience wherever you can and "have a crack" at new roles even if you don't feel you are quite ready for them.

"One of the things that the ICMJ experience at UNE taught me was to have a go, to always be prepared to try something new," Troy says. "I ended up developing some new skills and meeting all sorts of different people. It also showed others that I was prepared to learn, and in my game that goes a long way."

One of the things that the ICMJ experience at UNE taught me was to have a go, to always be prepared to try something new