Glanbia managing director Siobhán Talbot is the recipient of the inaugural Irish Times Business Person of the Month Award, in association with KPMG.

Ms Talbot (53) takes the award for May, having successfully overseen a deal to spin off Glanbia’s Irish dairy and and agribusiness operation into a joint venture, called Glanbia Ireland.

The company’s main shareholder, Glanbia Co-operative Society, will be the majority owner of this new entity. This is a major achievement as a previous attempt to sell the business to the co-op was unsuccessful in 2010.

Glanbia was formed out of the 1997 merger of the country’s two largest dairy co-operatives, Avonmore Foods and Waterford Foods. It has evolved significantly since then and now concentrates on its higher-margin nutrition business, which makes and sells protein shakes and bars, and its Glanbia Nutritionals US cheddar cheese and value-added protein ingredients division.