The clever strategy chosen by the regional manager of fast-growing agriculture firm Excel Farms secured the 2025 trans-Tasman business award
The Victorian regional manager of fast-growing Australian agriculture company Excel Farms has taken out this year’s Rabobank ‘Dr John Morris’ Business Development Prize from a field of some of Australia’s and New Zealand’s leading farmers.
A comprehensive and forward-thinking strategic plan, delivering strategies to take the business to the next level, earned Caroline McGrath the prestigious trans-Tasman business prize.
The prize is awarded annually as part of the Rabobank Executive Development Program (EDP). Caroline McGrath was among 29 progressive Australian and New Zealand primary producers graduating from the program in 2025.
Caroline McGrath, based in south-west Victoria, is a regional manager with Excel Farms, an agriculture company with a diverse range of properties located across the country. Excel Farms has a portfolio of agricultural assets producing grains and red meat.
In addition to her professional responsibilities, Caroline McGrath resides on and leases a family-owned sheep and cattle property, at Powers Creek, where she manages a first-cross ewe and Angus cattle-breeding operation.
The winning business plan – which Caroline McGrath developed as a management project while undertaking the EDP – aimed to “assist and drive the implementation of clear business strategic initiatives both at a company level as well as assisting individual farm managers with their own farm’s strategic plans and goal setting”.
The Rabobank Executive Development Program is a course developed for farmers looking to build their strategic planning capabilities and commercial management skills to explore options for business growth, which is run as two modules over an 11-month period.
Following the completion of the first module of the EDP in 2024, Caroline McGrath undertook a review of the Excel Farms business with her fellow leadership team.
As a team, they determined that “while the company had a solid business strategy and great culture, there were opportunities to enhance many systems and processes even further”, Caroline added.
