Ornua has announced the appointment of a new independent non-executive director to its board.

Aidan O’Driscoll will join the board after the 2022 Ornua AGM, which is scheduled to take place in June.

O’Driscoll has experience in the agri-food sector; national, EU and international affairs; and economics, having served in a number of positions in the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine.

With the department, he served as chief economist from 1995 to 2001 and assistant secretary for finance, EU affairs, economics and climate change from 2001 to 2015.

He was appointed secretary general of the department in 2015.

Following that, he moved onto the Department of Justice and Equality, to take up the role of secretary general at that department. He is the current chairperson of the Commission on the Defence Forces.

Other roles O’Driscoll has had include chairperson of the Committee on World Food Security. He has also served in the Irish Embassy in Italy and has worked with Irish Aid and the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations.

Commenting on O’Driscoll’s appointment, the chairperson of Ornua, Denis Cregan, said: “On behalf of Ornua I would warmly welcome Aidan to the board. He brings over 40 years experience of extensive wide-ranging national and international agri-food trade, economics, policy and leadership experience to Ornua.

“He joins at an exciting time as the business continues to deliver on its ambitious growth strategy across our 110 global markets. The board and the executive team look forward to benefiting from Aidan’s wealth of experience when he joins in June 2022,” Cregan added.

This isn’t the first new appointment in the dairy industry in recent days.

Dairygold has appointed a new member to its board of directors, following an election that took place last Friday (December 17).

Michael J. Murphy was elected to fill the vacancy in the Mid Cork region.

He replaces Richard Hinchion, who has now completed his maximum permitted consecutive periods of service on the board.