Rural Ambassador Alumni Story: Pip Wynn

• Shorthorn Exhibitor ⦁ Drought Coordinator ⦁ Rural Leader ⦁

Former RAS Rural Ambassador Pip Job is now the Director of Engagement at the NSW Department of Primary Industries leading a team of 65 staff who work on a diverse range of programs to continue to bolster primary industries.

These programs range from stakeholder engagement, farm business resilience, the Young Farmer Business Program and the Flood and Bushfire Recovery Support Services, all working closely with primary producers and rural and regional communities across NSW.

She has been recognised with a Public Service Medal for her role as the NSW Drought Coordinator in 2018 and won the National RIRDC Rural Women’s Award in 2014.

She credits her many formidable roles in agricultural leadership to early lessons she learned showing cattle and being involved in her local Cumnock Show for more than 15 years. Pip began showing cattle at school and describes this time as some of the ‘the best years of her life’.

Pip has a passion for top quality beef cattle and has enjoyed judging in Australia and overseas. Her long association in the rural show network has seen her compete as a showgirl entrant, judge, special guest and exhibitor, as well fulfilling roles as Cumnock Chief Cattle Steward and Vice President.

“You just connect with so many people, you honestly meet the fruit bowl of life at shows. It’s a wonderful, wonderful experience,” Pip said.

“I have mentors from those days, who have been beside me at key points in my life. I learned so many fundamentals of leadership from those early show experiences,” she added.

Pip was a Rural Ambassador in 2000 and her experiences behind the scenes at the show were among the best in her life at Sydney Royal. Bearing in mind it was a particularly good year, as she also exhibited and won the Grand Champion Shorthorn Bull.

“Showing and the Rural Ambassador program were at that stage of my life where everything I learned was so formative. Those experiences build character and gave me important lessons in diplomacy I will never forget.”

“Shows are where so many life lessons come from,” Pip added.

“There is a group of us who showed at the same time and we still have a bit of a laugh because we all knocked about at cattle shows together when we were younger and now have industry leadership roles in agriculture and still credit the skills we learned at shows in those early years,” Pip added.

Professionally, Pip is equally committed to regenerative and responsible land management practices as supporting and empowering rural communities to remain resilient in the face of significant social, economical and environmental barriers.

She remains a Technical Committee member of the Australian Beef Industry Sustainability Framework, has been on the Primary Industries Ministerial Advisory Council and has been formally acknowledged in the Australian Businesswomen’s Hall of Fame.

“There are two groups in my life that I could never repay my debt to, one is Landcare because they gave me such an incredible career start and the other is the stud cattle world,” Pip added.