Kyle Shepherd is AgriHealth’s NZ Sales Manager. Kyle is well known within the veterinary medicines industry and has spent his career working in or with vet clinics. He started in vet nursing before moving to customer services at Bomac where he developed a passion for delivering outstanding customer service. A stint as an account manager for NVS/Provet followed. Then Kyle took on another challenge, a technical selling role for Bomac (now Bayer) where he worked for nearly a decade. Kyle is an experienced, well liked and respected sales person with a proven track record.

Kyle recognises AgriHealth’s success in technically challenging markets like reproductive hormones, antibiotics & livestock vaccines. He believes AgriHealth’s top reputation is all about great people, outstanding technical support and investment in local trial work to support the products and solutions they offer.

In addition to managing the sales activities of the AgriHealth team, Kyle is the local sales area representative for Northland and South Auckland surrounds.

Shally (Michelle) lives in Morrinsville, where she and her husband sharemilk 340 cows. Shally commenced Vet Nursing at 16 years of age, and worked in several mixed animal practices in the Waikato and also in the UK. In the past five years Shally also undertook Large Animal Technician work and a Vet Practice Management role, and helped grow the practice into previously untapped markets.

Shally has a very good understanding of dairy farming, having reared thousands of calves and milked cows on many occasions. Shally was also an LIC AB Technician in the Waikato for a decade, and is one of only five approved goat AB Technicians in New Zealand. Her spare time is spent with her two daughters and husband, travelling and horses.

Louis Nijman is the Area Sales Manager for the Lower North Island where he is responsible for AgriHealth’s vet customers.

Louis has tertiary qualifications as a Veterinary Technician along with a Bachelor in Animal Husbandry which he gained in his homeland of The Netherlands.

Sophie qualified with a Bachelor of Science from the University of Otago, followed by a Bachelor of Veterinary Technology from Massey University. After graduating in 2015, she has worked in a variety of small and large animal vet clinics within New Zealand, Australia and the UK. Having worked as a large animal vet technician within the Canterbury region, Sophie has extensive knowledge of the New Zealand dairy farming and rural veterinary industry.

Sophie now lives near the beach in Christchurch with her partner, and in her spare time she enjoys hiking, skiing, running and a variety of other activities that involve the outdoors.

Rachael Powell is the Area Sales Manager for the lower South Island. She is responsible for supporting AgriHealth’s portfolio in rural vet practices from Darfield to Invercargill.

Rachael has a Bachelor of Science and Technology (BScTech) from Waikato University. She has 15 years’ experience in sales within the Animal Health sector having previously worked for Pfizer, Novartis and MSD.

Rachael and her husband live near Dunedin on a ‘lifestyle farm’. One of Rachael’s recent hobbies is breeding full blood Wagyu Beef of which saw her spend time in America to be trained in embryo transfer that she has put into practice on her own animals.

Maxine is AgriHealth’s Office Manager. Maxine has previously worked in similar roles, for both a large multinational and a smaller importing company, prior to joining AgriHealth.

Maxine gained a BSc (Hons) in Leicester and then spent several years working in London before emigrating to New Zealand in 2000.

Lucy graduated in 2020 from The University of Auckland with a BSc majoring in Biomedical Science. Her passions lie in health and wellbeing, and being able to understand disease at the molecular level. Lucy enjoys comparing the treatments she learnt about in university to the current standards of treatment for animals.

Lucy hails from the Far North, she has grown up surrounded by farming and rural New Zealand throughout her childhood. She has travelled extensively in 2019 through Europe, Japan and America. She enjoys baking, volunteering and exploring beaches in her free time.

Lyn Kehely is Agrihealth’s Marketing Manager, originally from Taranaki she grew up on dairy farm.  After returning from her OE in London and Switzerland, she spent many years in marketing roles working for FMCG companies such as Fonterra, Coca-Cola, Bell Tea and Vitaco.  Lyn’s most recent role was Product Marketing Manager at Fletcher Building developing strategic marketing campaigns.

She has a keen sense of adventure, after a recent mountain climbing expedition to Nepal, where she had time to reflect on what she was truly passionate about, after seeing so many animals living in terrible conditions, she realised she wanted her passion for animals, to translate into a career in animal health.

Ravi joined AgriHealth in March 2019. He has 10 years of experience working for animal health and agriculture businesses in New Zealand and across Asia-Pacific regions. He previously held business management, technical sales and marketing, and product research positions. Ravi has extensive experience working with farmers, farming businesses and food producers nationally and internationally.

He has an overseas Bachelor of Science degree in biotechnology and Postgraduate Diploma in Bioscience Enterprise from the University of Auckland.

Ravi's interest in agriculture started when he was growing up on small dairy and poultry farm in India. This interest translated into a career in the agribusiness sector. He is passionate about bringing innovative and tested solutions to improve farm performance, profitability, and sustainability.

Based in Christchurch, Paul Dwyer is the Key Account Manager for AgriHealth’s pig and poultry customers, and also is responsible for AgriHealth's rural veterinary medicines in North Canterbury, Marlborough, Nelson, and the West Coast.

He has extensive experience in the rural sector through previous South Island based roles with Tegel, NRM, and Elanco.

Paul also brings significant technical knowledge to the role, with an agricultural science degree from Massey University, and a diploma in nutrition.

Paul's combination of technical expertise, sales experience and passion for the production animal sector mean he is very well regarded by local rural vets as well pig and poultry customers.

Ed Catherwood is a Massey University agricultural science graduate, with experience in animal health and nutrition. Ed’s great great grandfather purchased a farm in Canterbury following his arrival from Ireland to New Zealand almost 160 years ago. This continued an even longer intergenerational connection that many Catherwood family members have experienced with pastoral farming of livestock. More recently Ed founded AgriHealth in 2008, and continues to own and lead the company. 

AgriHealth aims to help local vets help NZ farmers improve health and productivity, and has invested heavily in clinical trials to improve NZ farm animal outcomes. Ed attributes much of the success of NZ's leading locally owned animal health business to the experienced and skilled team that joined him at AgriHealth over the years. 

Ed is the Chair of ARPPA and represents the Association at AVMAC meetings and other relevant industry groups. In this pro bono role, as with the AgriHealth business, Ed endeavours to achieve the best outcomes for local agriculture and veterinary medicine, and ensure New Zealand remains a great place to farm animals and a wonderful place to live.

Jacques Barnard graduated as a vet from Pretoria University in South Africa, after completing BSc Honours in Wildlife Management. He then worked  in mixed animal rural practice, and ran a poultry consultancy business, prior to taking an animal health industry role at Ceva.

In 2008 Jacques and his family moved to New Zealand, and he has held technical, marketing and management roles with Bomac, van der Brink Poultry, Bayer and  Elanco.

Jacques is a certified Strategic Marketer, having completed post-grad business studies at Auckland University in 2017.  He is passionate about livestock farming, and has a strong understanding of the NZ veterinary sector. He has developed substantial business and product development experience, and has extensive international networks.  

Jacques lives in Beachlands near Auckland with his wife and their three school age kids, and enjoys playing squash and outdoor pursuits including biking, trail running and fishing.

From September 2021 Jacques will lead the Rural Vet Business Team at AgriHealth, with a focus on helping local vets to improve farm animal productivity and health in New Zealand.

AgriHealth's Technical and Regulatory Manager Laura Young has a wealth of relevant experience. She was Technical and Regulatory Manager for Elanco New Zealand for six years. Prior to that, Laura worked for seven years at Animal Health Morrinsville (now Anexa) primarily as a dairy cattle vet practitioner. During this period Laura assisted with bovine reproduction and mastitis trial projects led by Scott McDougall of Cognosco, and tutored cattle veterinarians around New Zealand as part of the DCV Bovine Ultrasound Pregnancy Diagnosis Roadshows. In addition, Laura is an Intelact Nutritional consultant.

Laura has also share-milked dairy cows in partnership with her husband on a Morrinsville farm, and they were finalists in Waikato Sharemilker of the Year several times.

In her role with AgriHealth, Laura acts in a Technical Advisor role to support NZ cattle vets in addition to leading Regulatory Affairs and local trialwork.

Steve graduated as a veterinarian from Massey University after completing a Bachelor of Science degree at Auckland University

He has over two decades of experience as a dairy practitioner having worked for the Veterinary Enterprises Group in the Waikato. Steve is well known to many in the profession for his roles as author and founder of the Leptosure programme, tutor of the DCV ultrasound roadshow and as a long-standing board member of the Veterinary Professional Insurance Society.

Steve’s focus over the last 6 years has been on mastitis management. He helped to establish PureMilk and was a senior mastitis consultant with a focus on farmer education. Steve has been involved in tutoring mastitis management to many industry groups, he is a tutor for the advanced mastitis course and a member of the national mastitis advisory council.

Steve is based in the Waikato and has joined the AgriHealth team as a technical vet with a focus on veterinary education.

This role was recently vacated, and the job description under revision. 

Please contact Ed if you would like to discuss in the meantime