FoodTech 11

Howard Chao 

howard@dooncapital.com

Howard Chao is both a startup investor and an event organizer.

Howard makes investments in early stage tech companies through his personal vehicle, Doon Capital, usually in collaboration with his network of institutional investors. He maintains close working relationships with various venture funds and strategic investors in each of his focus areas. Most of Howard's activities are in auto|mobility tech, ag|food tech, legal|reg tech, fintech and crypto.

Howard is also a Managing Director and primary shareholder of Doon Insights, a startup and technology events company that hosts invitation-only, highly curated workshops and salons for startups, financial investors and corporates at his ranch in the Santa Cruz mountains.

He began his work life as a corporate lawyer with O'Melveny & Myers and for many years was the Chair of the Firm's Asia Practice. He helped establish the firm's offices in Tokyo, Shanghai, Hong Kong and Beijing, and practiced for many years as a cross-border investment specialist based in Asia. Since 2001 Howard has been based in Silicon Valley, but has continued to do business in the Asia markets.

Dan Altschuler

da@unovis.vc

Dan brings a unique blend of entrepreneurial, operational, and investment expertise, honed over 25 years in food related endeavors. His purpose for co-founding Unovis Asset Management was to propel sustainable food systems through strategic investments, entrepreneurial drive, and innovation. He leads the firm's efforts across North America and Israel, identifying and capitalizing on opportunities for growth and impact. Dan is a Director of Black Sheep Foods, Nova Meat and Green Onyx and is a board advisor at Abbot's, Anina Foodtech and oShi. 

Paimun Amini

paimun.amini@bayer.com

As the Director of Venture Investments for Bayer's Leaps team, PJ drives the development and execution of a broad partnership strategy that accelerates Bayer's innovation in the Food & Ag space. Coming from a scientific background and the frontlines of digital innovation, PJ and his colleagues have filtered through hundreds of companies with the potential to have a major impact on the future of agriculture and our food supply moving the focus of Agriculture from simply producing MORE to producing BETTER. Growth stage agnostic (Seed – Series C), the Leaps organization facilitates investments, partnerships, and collaborations between emerging companies and the broader Bayer enterprise.

PJ joined Bayer Crop Science in 2011 and has held various leadership roles across the R&D and IT organizations; prior to which he was conducting research for the USDA. PJ has both a bachelor's degree in Biology and an MBA from Washington University in St. Louis.

Ken Barbic

barbic@invariantgr.com

With more than two decades of food, agriculture, and trade policy experience across Congress, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), and the private sector, Ken Barbic has carved out a leadership role in Republican politics. In 2018, President Donald Trump appointed Ken as the Assistant Secretary for Congressional Relations at the USDA. In this role, Ken provided political and strategic guidance to the Secretary and senior leadership on engaging in Congress.

Before joining Invariant, Ken was the head of policy and government relations at Farmer's Business Network, where he positioned the company as a thought leader on top issues shaping the industry.

Previously, Ken worked for the Western Growers Association, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, and the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Trade.

Adam Bergman

adam@ecotechcap.com

Adam Bergman is a Managing Director at EcoTech Capital where he works at the intersection of technology innovation and climate change. Adam is a sustainability executive leader with over 25 years' investment banking experience raising capital and executing M&A transactions. He also provides strategic advice and financial guidance to senior executives and boards on partnerships and growth strategies. As one of the first investment bankers to focus exclusively on the CleanTech sector, starting in 2005, Adam is recognized as a leading subject matter expert and is a frequent speaker at industry events and publisher of articles on sustainability.

Adam has built industry leading AgTech investment banking practices at Citi and Wells Fargo by creating a broad ecosystem to help drive adoption of technology and innovation throughout the food & ag value chain. Adam established the AgTech cohort for Wells Fargo's innovation incubator (IN2), which was launched at the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center in St. Louis, Missouri, in 2018. He sits on the technology advisory board for the Danforth Plant Science Center, as well as the Western Growers Association, which represents local and regional family farmers who grow over half the nation's fresh fruits, vegetables and tree nuts. Adam is also a technology advisor for farmer-owned Landus Cooperative, headquartered in Ames, Iowa and SeaAhead, a bluetech startup platform in Boston, Massachusetts, whose mission is to support new, innovative ventures, with a focus on sustainability and the oceans.

Adam has a B.A. in Political Science from Johns Hopkins University, where he was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa. Additionally, he holds an M.A. in International Development from the International University of Japan. Adam lives in San Francisco, California with his wife and two children.

Jason Book

jason@coastalcorpdev.com

Jason Book is a corporate development consultant and angel investor to early-stage startups in the health, wellness, fitness, climate tech, ag|food tech, cannabis, and related spaces with nearly 30 years of experience, particularly in brand-centric CPG companies.

Jason also serves as a principal advisor to and investor in Revelry Supply, Inc., a consumer accessories brand tailored to the bohemian outdoor lifestyle enthusiast with a unique multistate asset-light licensing model. His extensive nonprofit experience includes serving on the BOD of the DigitalNest from 2015 and 2022 where he was instrumental in scaling the organization. Previously, he was the then-youngest Chairman of the Board of Goodwill Central Coast from 2012 to 2015.

Jason is also an Executive In Residence with HawkTower, a new, early-stage venture capital firm focused on Underleveraged California. He began his career as a corporate lawyer in a boutique practice with his father Dennis in Santa Cruz, California where he acquired significant business transactional, corporate finance, and M&A experience in connection with companies such as CrossFit, Santa Cruz Organics, SunOpta, Surftech, and Rhino Toys, among others.

Jason was part of the pre-Looker startup ecosystem in Santa Cruz, and his passion for connecting early-stage entrepreneurs with advisors and investors and catalyzing the entrepreneurial community has fueled his career.

Mark Brodeur

brodeurmark6288@gmail.com

Mark is a venture builder and strategic advisor dedicated to advancing high-impact, sustainable innovations in the food industry. Based in Menlo Park, CA, he operates at the intersection of food, sustainability, and artificial intelligence. Over the past three years, he has advised venture firms and early-stage companies in the food, food tech, and sustainability sectors.

Formerly the Global Head of Digital Innovation for Nestlé, Mark brings nearly 30 years of commercial and strategic leadership experience from the world's largest food company. As the Global Head of Environmental Sustainability and Corporate Social Responsibility for Nestlé's $18 billion Petcare business, Purina, he led a wide range of initiatives that enhanced the company's sustainability efforts. He also led a team of over 20 marketing and technical professionals who developed new digitally-enabled services and business models for Nestlé businesses globally. Mark began his career in sales before transitioning into marketing, where he managed some of Nestlé's largest brands in North America.

Christian Butzke

cbutzke@purdue.edu

Dr. Butzke, a native of West Berlin, is Purdue's first SUFIE, the Senior University Fellow for Innovation & Entrepreneurship out of its Office of Research, who leads faculty teams of seasoned collegiate I&E Fellows and departmental I&E Ambassadors across the university system to foster an academic culture of innovation and entrepreneurship that elevates the societal impact of Purdue's use-inspired research. He is also a professor of food science and enology (the science of wine) in Purdue's College of Agriculture, and an award-winning faculty entrepreneur. He is a past-president of the American Society for Enology and Viticulture, the winemakers' professional guild, and was chief judge of the Indy International, the largest scientifically organized and independent wine competition in the US. 

Having taught more than 10,000 undergraduate students, he was inducted into Purdue's Book of Great Teachers as a faculty member "who has devoted his life to excellence in teaching and scholarship". A former faculty member of the UC Davis Department of Viticulture and Enology, he is the co-founder of the Joint Burgundy-California-Oregon Winemaking Symposia, served on the managing committee for the wine industry's largest conference, the Unified Wine & Grape Symposium, and has been an award-winning commercial winemaker. He is co-founder and chief enologist of the Purdue-based startup VinSense, a software company that provides vineyard management decision-support through real-time, high-resolution functional soil maps, modeling of soil and climate effects on fruit composition and quality, and powerful analytics and visualization tools. He has three awesome daughters.

Kyle Carlyle

kyle.carlyle@walmart.com

As the Vice President of Surety of Supply and Sourcing Innovation, Kyle Carlyle leads a team dedicated to strengthening the resilience of Walmart's supply chain and improving access to key product categories and creating strong relationships with our suppliers. His team transforms the company's global sourcing practices and has introduced innovative approaches and strategic partnerships, having conducted pilots with innovative companies in a variety of industries including unspun, Agritask, and many more.

With nine years of experience at Walmart, Kyle began his career in merchandising logistics and has held roles with increasing responsibilities such as supply chain optimization and network design and strategy. Prior to joining Walmart, Kyle also held various positions at JB Hunt Transport Services, Inc.

Kyle earned his Master of Science in Industrial Engineering from Kansas State University. Outside of work, he is actively involved in the Cancer Challenge as a member of its board of directors. Kyle and his wife are proud parents to three young children.

Rob Dongoski

rob.dongoski@kearney.com

Rob Dongoski, Partner at Kearney and global lead of Kearney's AgriFood sector, brings 25+ years of knowledge and experience across the food system to his clients.

With a focus on strategy and innovation, he's led some of the industry's most iconic mergers and developed break-through business model designs and partnerships. His involvement spans large corporates, investors and start up communities.

Keith Driver

keith.driver@tyson.com

Keith may be the most unlikely person to ever be considered as a farmer. From insects to aquaculture, Keith spends his time focussed on the more obscure and emerging areas of agriculture. Though his family office, Propel Ventures, Keith is working and investing in non-conventional, indoor and innovative agriculture with a belief that they form a healthy part of the solution for meeting the demands to feed a growing population.

Keith Driver is a serial entrepreneur in the clean-tech, health-tech and ag-techs spaces, with experience across North America. He has served in leadership positions in several technology companies over the past 20 yrs. His experience includes founding, senior marketing, technical and management roles, focused on emerging products and technologies. This has included fish farms, carbon trading, used oil re-refining, health services, animal feed production, insect production and fertilizer manufacturing.

Keith volunteers his time on the boards of BioAlberta, Ringette Calgary, and Ringette Alberta. He also volunteers as a mentor with the Creative Destruction Labs (Rockies – Agriculture and UBC – Climate), the A100 and imYEG.

Currently, Keith serves as the Project Director for the joint venture between Tyson and Protix, as well as CEO of a carbon investment fund. Keith holds two degrees in engineering and an MBA, and has served as a sessional instructor for both Entrepreneurship and Carbon Finance at his Alma Mater's, the University of Calgary and University of Guelph, as well as the University of Western Ontario.

Kimberly Fisher

kimfisher@ucdavis.edu

Kim's passion is in working with scientific experts to together solve the world's most pressing health issues. In addition to her role at IIFH, Kim serves as Chair of Research on the board of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.

She has also created several executive education programs at UC Berkeley and served on the board of the Haas School of Business. Prior to this, she ran several business incubators, founded and sold her own technology company, and did a three year stint in Lithuania with the Agency for International Development.

Kim has a BS from Wharton and an MBA from UC Berkeley. As a leading female CEO, she has been featured in five books and has appeared on the cover of US News & World Report.

Renee Flesch

renee.flesch@ingredion.com

Renee Flesch is the Global Head of Corporate Strategy at Ingredion, a Fortune 500 company and leading Texture innovator with a broad portfolio of food ingredients.

As a career Strategy and Innovation consultant formally trained as a food scientist, Renee has led projects with global clients along the food industry value chain, from farm to fork. With deep content expertise she drives traditional business objectives as part of her consulting work, while simultaneously infusing projects with creative design thinking and empathic facilitation.

Renee lives in Gloucester, MA where her neighbors include commercial fishermen and artists. She is also a Board member of the nonprofit Merck Forest & Farmland Center in Vermont, whose mission it is to educate youth on sustainable agriculture and forestry methods.

Lisa M. Gilford

lgilford@sidley.com

Lisa Gilford is a leading complex civil litigator with a practice focused on class actions, multi-district litigation, products liability matters and large scale commercial disputes. She is lead counsel to clients in a wide variety of industries including food, automotive, pharmaceutical, communications, oil and gas, aerospace and chemical manufacturing, sports and higher education. Clients turn to Lisa for counsel on their most challenging and significant legal issues. Her advocacy skills have played a pivotal role in shaping the outcome of numerous class actions and aggregate litigation matters nationwide.

Lisa is a founding member of Sidley's PFAS Working Group, a multidisciplinary team advising clients on per- and polyfluoroalkyl substance liabilities. She is also a member of the firm's Chambers-ranked Automotive and Mobility Leadership Committee, which is composed of lawyers from around the world in various practice areas dedicated to driving the firm's growth in the automotive and mobility sector.

Lisa previously taught at The Georgetown University Law Center and was a graduate fellow and public service lawyer with Georgetown's Institute for Public Representation. She frequently lectures on California tort, consumer protection and unfair competition claims, successful defense of class actions, best practices for outside counsel, and professional development for women lawyers and other diversity issues. Lisa earned her LL.M. from Georgetown University, her J.D. from the University of Southern California Gould School of Law and received a B.A. from Furman University.

Stephen Haggerty

s.haggerty@interiorlinesadvisory.com

Steve currently resides in the Hudson Valley, NY where he is a hobby farmer and the head of Interior Lines Research, LLC, a firm focusing on Wall Street analyst training and venture capital advisory work in the AgTech and E-mobility sectors.

Previously, Steve led Research teams around the world for both Buyside and sellside organizations. He spent over 18 years at Merrill Lynch/BofA as an analyst and Research Manager in New York and Hong Kong. He also headed Research at Moon Capital Management LP, an equity Hedge Fund.

Steve began his financial services career as an automotive analyst at Schroders Securities in London.

Before becoming a sellside analyst, Steve had a corporate career working in planning and operations at General Motors and automotive forecasting at Chase Econometrics.

Joshua T. Hofheimer

jhofheimer@sidley.com

Joshua Hofheimer is the co-leader of Sidley Austin's Global Agribusiness and Food industry group, which has consistently been recognized as a Band 1 "Global Market Leader" in this sector by Chambers Global for nine consecutive years. Josh combines two decades of corporate, commercial, and technology law practice with the experience of having run a public company to bring his clients focused, practical counsel to help them grow their business and maximize their value and returns.

Joshua's work spans a broad array of technology, intellectual property, and strategic commercial transactions. He advises innovators and entrepreneurs, investors, and farmland funds, and his technology experience includes crop inputs, biologics, peptides, genetics and gene editing, synthetic biology for proteins, fats and oils, precision fermentation, digital ag tools, services and drone systems. Joshua has negotiated research, funding and commercialization agreements, licenses and technology spin-outs, as well as developed strategies to exploit proprietary products growing out of the research programs of agri-tech and bio-tech clientele. He also advises clients on general corporate matters and capital raising.

Joshua is a frequent speaker at industry conferences on issues shaping the Ag|Food Tech sector. He is also a long-time member of the Advisory Board for the Resnick Center for Food Law and Policy at UCLA Law School.

Charles Holmes

charles@germin8ventures.com

Charles, an Associate at Germin8 Ventures, supports the senior leadership with investing, operations, strategy, and support of portfolio companies. Charles' respect for and desire to serve enterprising founders driving transformational change in food and agriculture began in Oregon's Wallowa Valley where he grew up surrounded by stewards of land and livestock and bore witness to winning business models, holistic resource management, and successful technology adoption. Charles applies his technical and sector knowledge to support Germin8's mission to effect a positive transformation of the global food system.

Prior to Germin8, Charles served as Manager of Farm Innovation, M&A and Strategic Partnerships for Sensei Ag, a controlled environment agricultural producer, Investments Lead at Frontier Farmland, an AgTech platform designed to improve farming outcomes through technology, and as Investment Associate at Farmland LP, a stalwart in regenerative land management and organic farmland conversion. Charles began his career in investment banking at Sandler O'Neill & Partners (merged forming Piper Sandler), and Youngwoo & Associates LLC, an international real estate developer.

Charles received his bachelor's degree in economics from Yale University and resides in the San Francisco Bay Area.

John R. Huber

huberjr@wellsfargo.com

John is National Advisory lead for Wells Fargo's Tech Banking practice. Based in the San Francisco Bay Area, John helps innovation companies across the country achieve financial success with debt/equity capital underwriting, global payments & investment solutions and various risk management services. Clients span all sectors outside life science with deep practice competency in Fintech, PropTech, Enterprise Software, Food / Ag and Sustainable Energy Tech. Segment coverage teams run from Seed through Mid Cap publics. John is a graduate of Northwestern University and University of Chicago Booth School of Business. He lives in Palo Alto and enjoys cycling, golf and all manners of the wine industry

Nigel Hughes

thisisnotanipad@gmail.com

Nigel Hughes was the Senior Vice President, Global R&D and Innovation at the Kellogg Company from 2017 until 2023 and is known for merging technical insights with business model and commercial opportunities to lead teams in creating delicious, accessible foods for billions of people around the world. He was a member of Kellogg Company's executive committee leadership team.

Prior to this role, Dr. Hughes was Chief Research and Development Officer for SC Johnson. Previously, Dr. Hughes spent ten years with Danone, first serving as VP and head of R&D for the company's global dairy business, and then as CEO of

Danone's Nutricia business, which specializes in baby food and clinical nutrition.

Dr. Hughes expanded into commercial and innovation after starting his career on the technical side. Prior to Danone, Dr. Hughes spent 14 years at Unilever first as a research scientist and then as Head of the Oral Care Global Innovation Center.

Dr. Hughes earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemistry from the University of Durham, United Kingdom and a Doctor of Philosophy in Chemistry from the University of Oxford.

Post his corporate career Dr Hughes spends his time guiding and mentoring startup companies in the consumer space and has set up a tour guiding company in Washington DC.

Kevin Lang

klang@agerpoint.com

Kevin is the CEO & President at Agerpoint, an innovator in geospatial intelligence that develops digital technologies to empower a sustainable food system and to protect natural environments. Agerpoint's spatial intelligence platform creates 3D models of crops and forests using smartphones and remote sensing, extracts plant metrics using artificial intelligence and fuses these outputs with other data layers to create plant-level digital twins for agriculture and climate-related insights.

Prior to Agerpoint, Kevin was Co-Founder and CEO of geospatial technology startup, spadeGEO. Prior to that, Kevin led the Agriculture business at PrecisionHawk, a commercial drone technology and analytics company. He also held roles at Deloitte Consulting and began his career in product development engineering with John Deere.

Kevin builds high-performing teams and solutions that use geospatial data, remote sensing and AI alongside immersive experiences with XR to address pressing societal issues such as food security, climate change, natural resource scarcity and aging infrastructure.

He holds an MBA from Wake Forest University and a BS in Mechanical Engineering from Clemson University.

Benjamin Leavenworth

bl@afinainternational.com

Benjamin Leavenworth has more than 20 years in international business, with a focus on Latin America. Mr. Leavenworth also serves as Honorary Consul of Chile for Pennsylvania, Delaware, and southern New Jersey.

Prior to co-founding Afina in 2011, he founded and ran the Chispa Group, an international consultancy with a focus on mining, energy, agriculture, and government projects across Latin America. He also serves as president of the board of Pata Foods, a leading organic baby food producer, and as a director on the boards of the Chilean & American Chamber of Commerce, Global Independence Center, Pan America Associations, and the Consular Corps Association of Philadelphia.

Paul Maxwell

paul.maxwell@nutrien.com

Paul Maxwell is a seasoned professional in the agriculture industry with over 27 years of experience in operational management and leadership. As a Manager at Nutrien Ag Solutions, he oversees the operations and performance of a major retail outlet in California's Salinas Valley, catering to the diverse needs of local farmers and growers. 

Paul's expertise spans facility management, forecasting, EBITDA, P&L management, pest control, crop advising, strategic planning, and effective communication. He holds multiple industry certifications, including Pest Control Advisor, Qualified Applicator, and Certified Crop Advisor, reflecting his deep technical knowledge and commitment to excellence.

Fluent in Spanish and Italian and proficient in Microsoft Office, Paul is adept at engaging with diverse stakeholders and driving results. His mission is to deliver high-quality products and services to customers while maximizing the profitability and sustainability of his outlet and contributing to the company's success.

Daniel Maycock

dmaycock@agerpoint.com

I grew up in a small farming town and started working with computers at the age of 13 during the emergence of personal computing and the internet in the early 90s. I got to spend my afternoons after school helping local farmers leverage computers to access weather data via dial-up and use office applications for back-office management. After attending Washington State University, the state's land-grant university, and getting married to a wonderful woman, I transitioned into the high-tech world for 15 years in Seattle.

During this time, I worked at companies such as Boeing and Amazon, launched a couple of startups, and worked globally in analytics consulting. I also earned my master's degree from Carnegie Mellon University, published a book, and had two children along the way. My career allowed me to travel the world and do some amazing things, but in the end, my true passion was to apply my work back to agriculture.

After my time at Amazon, my family and I, therefore, moved back to Eastern Washington, where I served as the head of analytics for a large agricultural packing distributor and as CIO for a major fruit grower, focusing on implementing analytics to improve operations. This experience led me to help found Loftus Labs, which provides fractional data-focused resources to agricultural companies along the West Coast.

After a time living back in Central Washington, my family then decided to move to Raleigh, NC, to experience a new part of the US and participate in the exciting AgTech scene here. Now, as the Chief Data Officer at Agerpoint, I get to explore opportunities to leverage AI in farming and work as an adjunct at NC State, helping to mature programs focused on data engineering best practices in agriculture.

John Peryam

john@fgcvc.com

John is a partner at Fulcrum Global Capital (FGC) an early-stage VC firm focused on management teams working to solve material issues within the global food production industry. John has over fifteen years of experience in investing, structuring, managing, and facilitating private market investments and other complex commercial transactions. With a background in both the traditional corporate environment and the private practice of law, John brings a deep experience in corporate capital transactions and knowledge of the funding landscape for early-stage companies.

George Powlick

gwp@astanor.com

George joined Astanor in 2020 as a Venture Partner, based in the United States. Among his 25 years of experience in venture capital, he has been the managing director of Doughty Hanson Technology Ventures since 2000, a fund focused on early stage European technology start-ups. Previously, he spent six years at Intel Corporation where he was instrumental in starting the group that became Intel Capital in EMEA.



During the last decade, George has focused primarily on sustainability investments and has been the Chairman of several start-up companies in the renewable energy sector. He is now applying his experience to help guide agri-food tech entrepreneurs to success.

Sheldon Ray

sheldon.ray@raymondjames.com

Sheldon is a Certified Portfolio Manager, Sr. Vice President and International Wealth Advisor at Raymond James in Washington, DC. He and his partner manage two complementary investment strategies:

• A global value-oriented portfolio of equities and fixed income for individuals and institutions 
• A US growth-oriented portfolio of equities and fixed income for individuals and institutions

Sheldon's analysis focuses on risk management, corporate governance, global macroeconomics, and long-term geopolitical developments, in addition to dividend yields, price-to-earnings ratios, credit analysis and other fundamentals. He conducts his own research and maintains regular contact with senior government officials, diplomats, economists, regulators and journalists.

Sheldon began his stock market experience as a young investor (age 14) in the grueling bear market of the early 1970's. He entered the securities profession with Prudential Securities in 1996, and joined Raymond James in February of 2015, after working at Morgan Stanley and UBS. Previously, Sheldon worked in the real estate investment business in Hong Kong in the 1980's. Sheldon's Hong Kong experience was pivotal in developing his global perspective.

Sheldon currently serves as chairman of the board of the Osgood Center (www.osgoodcenter.org​), on the advisory board of the SEC Historical Society (www.sechistorical.org​), treasurer of the Foreign Policy Discussion Group (www.fpdg.org​), finance committee and board of directors of Watergate South and co-chair of Rotarians for the Equality of Black People Committee. He has been active in the Rotary Club of Washington , D.C. for over 30 years, after joining Rotary initially in Hong Kong in 1988.

Sheldon regularly speaks to various groups on international financial markets and global corporate governance issues. Audiences include Fudan University in Shanghai, University of Chicago Graduate School of Business Alumni, National Defense University, Renmin University in Beijing, the Foreign Service Institute of the Department of State and the American Association of Independent Investors. During Sarbanes/Oxley proceedings Sheldon advised SEC commissioners on non-US securities regulations.

Sheldon has a Bachelor of Science degree in finance from Louisiana State University and received his Certified Portfolio Manager designation from Columbia University. He lives in Washington with his wife, Mary Beth, and is an Eagle Scout.

Stephen Sutton

steve@transparentseafarm.com

Steve grew up as an avid fisherman in upstate NY and attended Columbia University. He worked as a commercial fisherman and fisheries biologist for the federal government before obtaining a master's degree in aquaculture and spending close to a decade managing aquaculture farms overseas.

Since 2020, he has built, owned and operated an indoor shrimp farming technology company with its commercial pilot in Los Angeles County. He named the company TransparentSea, because transparency is a quality that the seafood industry is failing to provide its consumers.

Ashley Sweeting

ash@agscent.com

Ashley Sweeting specializes in commercializing cutting edge biotechnology for animals and leads the NASA technology transfer program for Agscent. This role includes engaging and developing partnerships across the livestock industries, the research community, investors, and manufactures alongside working directly with NASA scientist on the technology transfer. He has worked on cellular health, the microbiome, and building sensor technologies.

Previously Ashley worked in Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and Europe on programs to improve agricultural productivity and sustainability and combatting famine. He holds an MBA from the University of Tasmanian, a Bachelor of Science in Agriculture from Sydney University, and a Graduate Certificate in Data Analytics from Boston University.

Mary Kay Thatcher

mary_kay.thatcher@syngenta.com

Mary Kay Thatcher joined the Government Relations team for Syngenta in 2018. In her role as Federal Government and Industry Relations Senior Manager, Mary Kay supports the company's strategic federal government relations activities including outreach and advocacy. Based in Washington, D.C., she continually meets with legislators to advocate for policies that support U.S. agriculture and Syngenta. She also manages the work of the Syngenta Political Action Committee (PAC), generating internal support and providing direction for the work of the PAC.

Prior to that, she was a lobbyist for the American Farm Bureau Federation for 31 years. In that role, she lobbied primarily on issues covering farm programs, crop insurance, conservation and credit – and is now active in working on her ninth farm bill.

During her tenure at Farm Bureau, Mary Kay also spearheaded the organization's participation in farm data, security and privacy. She served as President of the Ag Data Transparency Evaluator, a tool developed by ag tech providers and farm/commodity groups to help farmers understand the contracts they sign to share their farm data. Mary Kay also served as Secretary of the Ag Data Coalition, a group of 14 members consisting of farm groups, land grant universities, ag equipment manufacturers and technology companies and providers.

Mary Kay served in the first Bush Administration as a political appointee, as the director of congressional and public affairs of the Farm Credit Administration. In that capacity, she was responsible for the policy direction and management of the agency's congressional and public affairs activities. Mary Kay began her career as a legislative assistant for agriculture and trade to Senator Roger Jepsen of Iowa. She is a graduate of Iowa State University where she earned degrees in animal science and agricultural economics.

A fifth-generation Iowa farmer, Mary Kay grew up on a 500-acre Iowa beef, hay and corn farm. She now manages a farm in Iowa producing corn and soybeans, as well as a cow/calf operation.

Rob Trice

rob@mixingbowlhub.com

Rob Trice is the Founder of The Mixing Bowl. In 2013, he began to leverage his background in telecom, mobile and internet venture capital to the application of information technology to the food and agriculture sectors. He is also the Founder of Better Food Ventures, making seed-stage investments aligned with the theme of applying IT to the food and agriculture industries. Rob previously worked at Swisscom Ventures, SK Telecom Ventures, Nokia Growth Partners and Nokia Venture Partners (now BlueRun Ventures).

Prior to his days in venture capital work, he was at DIRECTV in LA and at a think-tank in DC, the Center for Strategic & International Studies. He also founded the non-profit Corporate Innovators Huddle and serves on the board of San Francisco-based engaged philanthropy organization, Full Circle Fund. He splits his time between Menlo Park and Pescadero, CA.

Carter Williams

cwilliams@iselectfund.com

Carter Williams has spent his entire career working on innovation. First as a young engineer at McDonnell Douglas, next in his leadership roles at Boeing managing R&D and starting Boeing Ventures. Later as a successful entrepreneur and venture investor. Throughout his career, he has directly managed investments of over $600 million in early-stage ventures and corporate research, resulting in several billion dollars of new product revenues. As part of Boeing Phantom Works, Carter led Boeing's technology planning process, involving all aspects of internal and external technology development and manufacturing research. This eventually led to his role in founding and managing Boeing Ventures. After Boeing, he was President of Gridlogix, initially a small 4-person startup that grew over 3 years, exiting successfully to Johnson Controls in October 2008. Gridlogix became Johnson Controls Panopics system. Before leading iSelect, Carter was Senior Managing Director at Progress Partners, an energy and technology investment banking firm. He was a Managing Partner at Open Innovation Ventures and a Director at Clayton Capital Partners. Carter is the past President and Founder of the MIT Corporate Venturing Consortium and Co-founder of the MIT Entrepreneurship Society. He has an M.B.A. from the MIT Sloan School and a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. He also writes about innovation at the substack Creative Destruction.

Melanie Yelton

melanie@growbig.ag

As an independent consultant, Melanie integrates information drawn from her work as a director in plant science at Plenty and as a vice president of research in the horticulture lighting industry, as well as her broad contacts with key individuals in specific topics within the Controlled Environment Agriculture Sector.

Melanie's research has focused on optimizing plant growth, flavor and quality using light and she holds a patent for work involving filamentous fungus. She served as a lecturer and scientist at Stanford University, teaching and studying plant signaling in alfalfa and corn. She also served as Director of Sequencing at the Stanford DNA Sequence and Technology Center, part of The Human Genome Project. Melanie earned a Ph.D. from UC Davis in Plant Molecular Biology; a Master's degree in Biochemistry from the University of South Carolina; and a Bachelor's degree in Biology from Virginia Tech.

Brad Zamft

brad@heritable.ag

Brad is the CEO of Heritable Agriculture.

Previously Brad Zamft was the project lead on an early-stage project at X working at the intersection of ML, agriculture, and sustainability. Prior to his work at X he served as the Chief Scientific Officer of TL Biolabs – a startup aimed at DNA diagnostics for the cattle industry.

Before joining TL Biolabs, Brad worked at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation as a Program Officer and Fellow. He led the Foundation's partnership with the National Natural Science Foundation of China, ran grants on synthetic-biology based drug discovery, and initiated and developed a bacteriophage program.

Before working at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Brad was a fellow at the US Department of Energy's Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (ARPA-E). There he served as a technical advisor for the PETRO program, which aimed to engineer plants to directly produce drop-in compatible biofuels, and helped develop the TERRA program, which aimed to accelerate plant breeding via interdisciplinary research in robotics, bioinformatics, computational biology, remote sensing, phenomics, and agriculture.

Brad received his PhD in Physics from the University of California, Berkeley and performed postdoctoral research at Harvard under Prof. George Church.

Alfred Zimmerman

a.zimmerman@axitan.com

Al has 25+ years of strategy, commercial, operating and innovation experience across multiple high-tech industries, with 15+ years in biotechnology. He has a Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering from the University of Texas, an MBA from Texas Christian University and an Executive Certificate from the University of Wisconsin.

Most recently Al has led innovation, growth strategy, business development & M&A at Novus International as the Vice President and Chief Innovation Officer. Prior to joining Novus, Al established and led the Dietary Supplement Finished Format Business at DuPont (now IFF). While at DuPont, Al oversaw the development of the probiotic manufacturing platform within the US and finished format manufacturing platform globally.