Management Team
Richard Spittle
CEO
Richard joined the ABS in February 2021 as our CEO. Hailing from Melbourne, Australia, Richard has always had an interest in the agricultural community. After leaving school, he worked on several broadacre dry stock and cropping farms in Western Australia and the Riverina of New South Wales. Spurring on his interest in agriculture, he studied at a specialist agricultural college in Victoria. In 1995, Richard moved to New Zealand and joined the ASB Bank as a Rural Graduate based in the Waikato
Specialising in Rural Lending, Richard spent 25 years at ASB Bank and had a number of different roles. His most recent one before leaving the bank, was North Island Rural Regional Manager. He resides just outside of Hamilton with his wife Jo and daughters Briar and Summer. As CEO of ABS, Richard’s focus is helping ABS achieve sustainable growth and enabling customer to achieve great genetic outcomes.
Jacqui Forsyth
General Manager & Centre Vet
Originally from a dairy farm in Taranaki, Jacqui made the move to Massey University where she qualified with a Bachelors of Veterinary Science. She then made the trek up to the Waikato where she worked at AgResearch, an organisation devoted to the improvement of agricultural science and technologies.
Within AgResearch, Jacqui worked in the reproduction team honing her skills in bovine TVR for just shy of 10 years. After spending 10 years doing technical work, Jacqui wanted to move into a role that is more client focussed allowing her to connect to NZ breeders and particularly the dairy industry. Jacqui is now the General Manager and Centre Vet here at ABS, dealing with all the scheduling, staffing and signing off on exports. You will still see Jacqui carrying out technical work, particularly TVR and Sheep AI/ET in the busy periods. Her passion is to help breeders achieve their goals, and to make the process as simple as possible.
Daina Harris
Lab Manager
Daina was born and bred in the Manawatu, spending a lot of her younger years working on her family dairy farm. To spread her wings, in 2003 she moved to study at Waikato University. Daina’s passion for reproductive technologies grew during her MSc thesis, while undertaking technical lab work at AgResearch. Shortly after, she first joined the ABS team in 2013 which introduced her to the many farm aspects of TVR and Embryo Transfer, beginning a journey in commercial IVP work.
In 2016, Daina left NZ to obtain experience abroad where she was a vital part of the IVP Laboratories startup and ongoing success of sister companies AB Europe and AB Ireland, in the UK and Ireland, respectively. After years of managing IVP teams in the UK, she has taken on the challenge of Lab Manager back at ABS NZ in late 2022 to enable her to do what she loves back in the country she loves!
Daina has gained 10+ years’ experience working with farmers and lab/vet teams specialising in reproductive technology. Her main focuses on staff training and a constant drive for progressive improvement will ensure that a quality job always comes first for our clients.
Racheal Salmon
Finance Manager
Racheal joined ABS in April 2022 as our Finance Manager. She is a Chartered Accountant with over 20 years’ experience as a Finance Leader in a wide range of industries from Chartered Accountancy firms, Air Traffic Control, Casinos to Galvanizing. She is enjoying bringing a background of continuous improvement to the ABS team and the challenge of learning the Animal Breeding industry.