Hugh Killen was appointed as Australian Agricultural Company (AACo) Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer in February 2018. Prior to this, he held the position of Chief Commercial Officer in a consulting capacity assisting AACo’s operations and finance functions. Hugh is a highly experienced senior executive with over 25 years’ experience in global financial markets and has worked in London, New York and Sydney.

Established in 1824, AACo is Australia’s largest integrated cattle and beef producer, and is the oldest continuously operating company in Australia. Today, AACo owns and operates a strategic balance of properties, feedlots and farms comprising around 7 million hectares of land in Queensland and the Northern Territory. This equates to roughly 1% of Australia’s land mass. AACo specialises in grain fed beef and Wagyu beef production.

Before joining AACo, Hugh spent 15 years at Westpac Institutional Bank. He held several senior executive roles which included managing Westpac Banking Corporation’s North American business throughout the global financial crisis, and finally as the Managing Director of Fixed Income, Currency and Commodities.

Hugh has also served as a board member of the Association for Financial Markets Global Foreign Exchange Division, sat on the Reserve Bank of Australia’s (RBA) Australian Foreign Exchange Committee. Hugh has represented Australia internationally as the RBA appointed member of the BIS Working Group developing the Global Code of Conduct for foreign exchange markets.

Hugh is an alumni of the Kings School, Parramatta and Harvard Business School and a Member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors. Hugh has a lifelong association with agriculture having being raised on pastoral properties in northern NSW and south-west Queensland, and has retained strong personal involvement in the industry through private investments in farming.