Managing director Gareth Evans, who has been recovering from a head injury for more than a year, has stepped down to focus on his health after eight years in the role.
The firm’s chief financial officer, Sally Henderson, who has been acting chief executive, will officially take the reins on January 19.
While it is not unusual for women to run companies, the appointment of women to top roles remains less common in the still male-dominated engineering sector.
Mr Evans said his replacement was very well suited to what the company needed over its next stage of growth.
The pair started at Farra within six months of each other. They had been on "a journey together" and their respective strengths had complemented each other, Ms Henderson said.
Ms Henderson grew up in Tapanui and attended Blue Mountain College before completing a commerce degree, in accounting, at the University of Otago — the first member of her extended family to go to university.
She worked for Deloitte in Dunedin and Hamilton before moving to Waikato Rugby and the Chiefs. Returning to Dunedin in 2006, she worked at ANZ and later Calder Stewart in Milton before joining Farra.
"This place is full of really good humans ... it’s got a good balance of humour, work, friendship, intelligence and people striving for the same goal."
She said she was looking forward to fully stepping into the role, as it had been a juggle managing her CFO responsibilities while also filling in as CEO.
Mr Evans had been the face of engineering for the South and, in some instances, represented the sector at a national level, and his work had been pivotal in getting Farra to where it was today, Ms Henderson said.
Mr Evans said leading one of the city’s oldest companies had been a great honour but it also came with a lot of pressure around securing opportunities for its future.
While the domestic side of the business was struggling, export was going well. That domestic work would return at some point — "we just don’t know when", he said.
He considered Farra to be "almost a Dunedin taonga" —"everyone’s got a connection [there], everyone knows the name, everyone has an uncle or second cousin who has worked there at some point."
