Board and Leadership team
AHDB board
The AHDB board has reduced from ten to nine members – four of which are Sector Council Chairs and four of which are independent members – and the Chair. Their appointments are for varying periods of up to four years. Selection and appointment of the members of the board is carried out by Defra under the rules of the Office of the Commissioner for Public Appointments (OCPA).
AHDB Chair - Nicholas Saphir
Nicholas was appointed as chair of AHDB in April 2020. He has a wide background in agriculture and horticulture, having built a public company, farming, processing and trading fruit and vegetables in the UK, Europe, southern Africa and South America. His dairy experience includes a period as a non-executive director of Dairy Crest leading up to its flotation and spending the last 18 years building the Organic Milk Producers' Cooperative (Omsco) into the world’s second largest dedicated organic milk cooperative, with exports of cheese, butter and infant formula grade milk powders to the USA, EU and Australasia. He also has a long and successful record of chairing industry and government bodies in the food and farming sector, including being the chair of the Central Council for Agricultural and Horticultural Cooperation, founder chair of Food from Britain, president of the Fresh Produce Consortium and chair of the Agricultural Forum.
Dr Catherine MacKenzie
Board Member and chair of the Remuneration and Nominations Committee
Peter Judge
Interim Chair of AHDB Horticulture sector board and attends parts of AHDB Board meetings (no voting rights)
AHDB leadership team
Chief Executive Officer - Tim Rycroft
Tim Rycroft joined the AHDB as CEO on 31 August 2021. He was formerly at the Food and Drink Federation (FDF) where he joined as Corporate Affairs Director in September 2015. In September 2018 he was promoted to Chief Operating Officer with responsibility for strategy and corporate affairs as well as overseeing the federation’s policy on diet & health and on competitiveness. Prior to FDF, Tim held senior corporate affairs roles with InterContinental Hotels Group plc (as Director of Communications, Europe); Diageo plc (as Corporate Relations Director, GB and then Corporate Relations Director, Global Duty Free) and Boots Healthcare International (as Head of Corporate Affairs). For three years Tim was a Special (political) Adviser in government, to the Minister without Portfolio and then to the Secretary of State for Health. Tim has also worked in corporate communications consultancy.
