Could the Zanda McDonald Award be your next big step?
Sometimes the biggest step forward in your career starts with putting your hand up. Not because you have everything figured out. Not because you already see yourself as a leader. But because you are curious about what else might be possible.
Across New Zealand’s primary industries, there are talented young people doing exactly that. They are running farms and businesses, leading teams, growing food, solving problems, introducing new technology and finding better ways of doing things.
Many are already making a difference without necessarily thinking of themselves as the next generation of industry leaders.
The Zanda McDonald Award exists to find those people – and help them discover just how far they could go.
Since 2014, the Zanda McDonald Award has identified and developed emerging leaders from across Australia and New Zealand’s primary industries.
Open to people aged 21–35, it goes well beyond recognising what someone has already achieved. The real opportunity lies in what comes next.
Finalists become part of the Zanda alumni network and attend the annual Award Impact Summit, connecting with industry leaders, sponsors, previous finalists and alumni from across the Tasman.
For the New Zealand and Australian winners, that experience goes even further, with a personalised mentoring journey designed around their aspirations, interests and leadership development.
It is exposure to different businesses, different people and different ways of thinking – and the opportunity to step outside the day-to-day and consider a much bigger question: Where could I go from here?
The best way to understand the impact of the Zanda McDonald Award is through the people who have experienced it.
For 2025 New Zealand winner Maegen Blom, the Award arrived at a point when she was already thinking about what might exist beyond her current role.
As Operations Manager at Marlborough-based Mills Bay Mussels, Maegen was leading across sales, marketing, processing and distribution. She loved what she was doing, but could see her ambitions extending further.
The Award surrounded her with business and industry leaders whose experiences challenged and expanded her thinking. What followed was not simply professional development, but greater confidence to back herself and think bigger about where her career could lead.
That confidence is a theme that runs through many winners’ stories.
Nancy Crawshaw, the 2024 New Zealand winner, applied after returning home following six years in Australia. Despite having developed a strong network across the Australian beef industry, she wanted to build those connections in New Zealand and continue putting herself in situations where she would be challenged.
The experience delivered exactly that.
Nancy has described her confidence as increasing tenfold following the Award. More importantly, she has turned that growth outward. Through the youth programmes she now leads, more than 160 young agricultural leaders have benefited from connections to the Zanda network.
That ripple effect matters. Because developing one leader can create opportunities for dozens more.
For 2022 New Zealand winner Rhys Roberts, the Award helped change the scale of his thinking.
Already CEO of Align Farms in Mid-Canterbury, Rhys was helping build an ambitious farming operation. But exposure to other leaders and businesses through Zanda challenged his assumptions about what was possible.
One of the biggest lessons was the importance of investing in people and culture with the same intent that successful businesses apply to any other critical input.
Today, Align has grown well beyond where it was when Rhys received the Award, operating ten farms, milking around 5,000 cows and expanding into a vertically integrated food business.
Rhys has also grown from business operator to a broader industry leader, taking on governance, speaking and leadership opportunities – and eventually joining the Zanda McDonald Award Board himself.
It is a powerful example of what “growing beyond the gate” can look like.
Sometimes the opportunity does not change where you work. It changes how you see what is possible from where you already stand.
Perhaps one of the most compelling aspects of the Award is that its impact does not end with the announcement of a winner or the completion of a mentoring programme.
For Morgan Easton, who won in 2017, the relationships remain one of the most valuable parts of the experience almost a decade later.
As someone immersed in his family farming business, the Award gave Morgan an opportunity to step outside the farm, experience different sectors and businesses across the Tasman, and return with fresh ideas and a broader perspective.
Years later, the connections and friendships remain.
That same sense of acceleration is clear in the story of Sam Vivian-Greer, the 2021 New Zealand winner.
At the time, Sam had recently moved from farming into agricultural consultancy and was only 12 months into his new career. The exposure to leaders and organisations across Australia and New Zealand rapidly expanded both his network and his confidence.
Sam believes the experience fast-tracked his leadership journey by years.
He has since built and led teams, taken responsibility for a significant portfolio of primary-sector assets, contributed to major investment projects and supported the development of other emerging rural professionals.
And, like many before him, he has continued giving back through mentoring, industry programmes and the Zanda alumni community.
That is what makes this Award different. It does not simply identify leadership. It helps multiply it.
Property Brokers is proud to support the Zanda McDonald Award because we see the importance of strong rural leadership every day.
Across the farming families, businesses and provincial communities we work alongside, the primary sector is constantly evolving.
Technology is changing. Businesses are becoming more sophisticated. New markets and opportunities are emerging. Expectations around sustainability, people, succession and performance continue to develop.
Navigating that future will require capable people who are prepared to stay curious, challenge conventional thinking and bring others with them.
Earlier this year, we were proud to attend the 2026 Zanda McDonald Award Celebration Dinner in Christchurch, where New Zealand’s Karn Dhaliwal and Australia’s Bryce Neyland were named this year’s recipients.
Their backgrounds could hardly demonstrate the breadth of modern primary industries better.
Karn has built a diverse horticultural and cropping business in Waikato, combining entrepreneurship with a commitment to creating opportunities for others coming through the vegetable industry.
Bryce brings together a farming background with civil engineering and project management expertise, leading major agricultural infrastructure projects in Australia.
Different careers. Different industries. The same willingness to keep learning, growing and contributing. That is something worth backing.
You do not need to be running a major agribusiness. You do not need to have your career mapped out. And you certainly do not need to feel as though you have already “made it”.
If you are 21–35, working in New Zealand or Australia’s primary industries and ready to grow your leadership, networks and perspective, the Zanda McDonald Award could be your next step.
More than an Award, it opens the door to exceptional mentoring, influential industry connections, unique experiences and a lifelong trans-Tasman network. And the stories of those who have gone before show just how far that first step can lead.
