''It's been a matter of public record that we have had a divided board,'' she said.

''The situation I have found myself in the business is untenable. On a number of occasions, I have put my hand up and said this needs to be remedied and this is the ultimate putting my hand up.''

Her main problem was governance, as some board members tried to intervene in operational decisions, the Herald understands.

Kevin Bell, a former director who left three months ago, described the board politics as poisonous and said its members included ''some very strange and nasty people who are very powerful and they seem to have time and money and ego''.

Using woolgrower levies, the organisation conducts research and markets wool, particularly overseas where consumers are increasingly joining animal activists' boycotts over the Australian practice of mulesing.

As synthetics rise and the flock falls, it is a tough job and Ms McGahan was a popular choice.

''The people on the AWI board used Brenda. They used her to con Australian woolgrowers to support them,'' said Professor Bell, a Murdoch University veterinary science academic.

There was an ''old brigade'', from wealthy sheep farming families, who thought they could continue to grow wool the same way and use marketing to raise the price, he said.

Greg Weller, the executive director of WoolProducers Australia, which represents 10,000 woolgrowers, said some directors had garnered votes by making ''outlandish populist'' claims, unrealistically promising to increase the wool price.

''We have had concerns about AWI for some time. When the new CEO is appointed after Brenda, that will be the fourth CEO in four years - which is pretty amazing. You wonder how they could achieve results. They had three separate chairmen in that time as well,'' Mr Weller said.

Because the system was flawed, directors without the skills necessary to run a company were elected in ''a popularity contest'', he said.

Some directors won votes by telling farmers they would fight for their right to continue mulesing, a practice the organisation said in 2004 it would phase out.