WACAPOL’S FOUNDING PRINCIPLES
WACAPOL’s founding principles are based on the insight of Michael Hadcock, a Unilever chief-engineer, with 25 years’ experience in the palm oil industry, including turns at Okitipupa, NIFOR and TOPP.
He recognized the need for a simple, efficient and robust crude palm oil mill that would be suitable for operation in remote locations, scalable and affordable.
In the 1980s, he was commissioned by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation to develop and trial a prototype, which was the forerunner of WACAPOL’s Crude Palm Oil Mill.
Michael was made a Yoruba Chief of Igbodigo in Ondo State, Nigeria for his contribution to the welfare of the local community.
Michael Hadcock, Unilever Chief Engineer and Yoruba Chief of Igbodigo in Ondo State, Nigeria with his wife Rosemary
Mark Hadcock
Mark Hadcock is CEO of WACAPOL Mills Ltd, has been WACAPOL’s principal promoter since 2008 and has an encyclopaedic knowledge of the oil palm sector.
Before that, he was involved in City Loft Developments, a property developer, as Finance Director from 2000 to 2007, during which time it grew from 6 to 60 employees, entered into a joint venture with Lehman Brothers, obtained an AIM listing and then went from public to private.
He started work in commodities as a cocoa crop forecaster in Ivory Coast and setting up a buying operation in Nigeria. In 1996 he became Finance Director of Daarnhouwer (UK), a niche commodity trading company. He has a BSc. in Agricultural Economics from University of Reading.
Anthony Berendt
Anthony Berendt is CFO of WACAPOL Mills Ltd and has worked with WACAPOL since 2010.
He has been involved in a number of entrepreneurial businesses and is a finance, legal and management professional with a blue-chip background in the City of London with NM Rothschild & Sons Ltd and Theodore Goddard.
He is a qualified lawyer, a Sloan Fellow (MSc. in Management) of London Business School and has a BA in Modern History from University of Oxford.
