Town of Monaghan have confirmed the appointment of Gabriel D’Arcy as their CEO Designate to succeed Vincent Gilhawley later this year.

The move was exclusively revealed in this week's Irish Farmers Journal. It is seen as a coup for Town of Monaghan co-op to secure a high calibre executive with broad national and international experience.

A native of Ballinamore, Gabriel D’Arcy has been Managing Director of Bord na Móna since 2008. On Monday it announced record profits of €50.3m for 2013, a 114% increase on the previous year. More importantly, he also has extensive experience with Kerry Group.

He joined Kerry in 1989 and was closely involved in the rapid expansion of Kerry’s Ingredients Division in Europe and became became Commercial Director of that Division. His time at Kerry was spent developing a European Food Ingredients Division by implementing pan European strategies while also ensuring alignment with core Kerry values. A critical element of his role was the identification and negotiation with key acquisition targets to ensure smooth post acquisition integration into the Kerry culture. It will be fascinating to see if he can put these skills to work at Town of Monaghan.

Hugo Maguire, chairman of town of Monaghan, said that "having spent 19 years in the food sector, Gabriel is now anxious to return to the dairy industry with Town of Monaghan.

Gabriel will succeed Vincent Gilhawley who has been CEO of Town of Monaghan for 26 years. Hugo Maguire said that "Vincent will continue in the role of CEO up until Gabriel takes over later this year and he will then remain on to assist in the transition period".

Town of Monaghan is a cross-border farmer owned and controlled Co-operative, serving 950 milk producers in Monaghan, Cavan and the six counties of Northern Ireland. It currently has a milk pool of c.450 million litres and has just recently reported record pre-tax profits of €10.5 million on a turnover of €219 million. The Co-operative operates two processing sites at Monaghan and Artigarvan, Co.Tyrone.

Gabriel D’Arcy holds a B.Sc (Hons) from NUIG (1981), an M.Sc from U.C.D (1988), an M.B.A. from Kinston University Business School (1996) and an Advanced Diploma in Management Practice from the University of Ulster (2008). He also completed the Leadership for Growth programme at Stanford University in 2009 and the Diploma in Company Direction from the Institute of Directors in 2010.

At Bord na Mona he has led the transformation of the organisation to deliver it’s vision, “A New Contract with Nature”. This was a diversification strategy to move Bord na Mona away from total dependency on peat operations to embrace Renewable Energy and Resource Recovery in it’s portfolio.

Read James Campbell's report on Town of Monaghan performance in 2013