2022 Speakers

Dr. Emma Keller
Head of Sustainability - Nestle UK & I

Emma leads the sustainability agenda across Nestlé UK & Ireland, focusing on delivering the ambitious net zero climate commitment and driving the business to be a force for good. Prior to joining Nestlé last year, Emma led a team at WWF on food system transformation and before that was in Unilever’s sustainability team working on delivering the Unilever Sustainable Living Plan.
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Sibéal Bird
Global Sustainability Lead - Kerry Group

Sibéal Bird is responsible for the execution of the Beyond the Horizon sustainability strategy at Kerry Group, a world leader in Taste and Nutrition. Sibéal is focused on creating
significant, positive impact on the environment and society, by driving the ambition of providing sustainable nutrition to over 2 billion people by 2030 .

Sibéal is an ambitious and pragmatic sustainability professional with over 10 years’ experience working at some of the world’s biggest food and drinks companies to provide strategic guidance in helping develop and implement innovative strategies to transform businesses and operations towards triple-bottom line sustainability.

Sibéal has a Bachelor’s degree in International Business from the University of Maynooth in Ireland and a Master’s degree in Business Sustainability from the Smurfit Graduate Business School at University College Dublin in Ireland

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Natasha Schwarzbach
Director Global Procurement Sustainability - PepsiCo

Natasha Schwarzbach is a member of PepsiCo’s Global Sustainability Agriculture team and is the strategic global lead for a variety of sustainable commodities including palm oil and cane sugar to help meet PepsiCo’s public sustainability and policy commitments. Natasha has a breadth of experience and a passion for addressing sustainability issues with a focus on delivering successful programs that drive measurable environmental, economic and social impacts through effective engagement and strong collaboration. She is Co-Chair of the RSPO’s Shared Responsibility Working Group and initiated the development of the NDPE Implementation Reporting Framework, the Palm Oil Collaboration Group and developed a number of landscape programs within Indonesia and Mexico that supports conservation and smallholders within palm and cane sugar. Natasha is on the Bonsucro Member Council, Chairs the Buyers Group and is actively involved in the Interlaken Steering Group and the Consumer Goods Forum – Deforestation Coalition of Action.
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Mattie Yeta
Head of Sustainability - Defra IT

Mattie Yeta is the Head of Sustainability for Defra IT and a PhD researcher specialising in corporate sustainability and green economics and national recovery. She chairs the Defra e-Sustainability Alliance, a network of 300 private sector organisations working with the United Nations and other stakeholders. She led the creation of the Cabinet Office One Government Cloud Strategy Sustainability Workstream, the UK Government’s sustainable technology report 2017 and the Sustainability industry guide to help businesses achieve sustainable outcomes. Her work is driven by a passion for building a better world through business, partnerships and innovation. Committed to achieving the best possible outcomes for organisations, Mattie received the “industry sustainability leader of the year” award, the Civil Service award as “highly commended”, Defra’s corporate services award for “leading through change,” and was a nominee for “the most influential women in UK tech.”

Mattie has substantial experience and expertise in sustainable development at both the strategic and delivery levels across the public and private sector and has led substantive change in the Sustainable Development arena. Through her career she has obtained significant experience in stakeholder engagement, including at senior executive levels, strategy development, influencing and drafting industry policy, project and programme management, people management and development experience combined with strong coaching and motivational capabilities.

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Jamie Burrows
Founder & CEO - Vertical Future

Jamie Burrows is the Founder & CEO of Vertical Future, a leading vertical farming technology and research company, designing and providing hardware and software solutions to vertical farms on a global scale. Jamie has over 15 years of experience and prior to setting up Vertical Future, he worked in Life Sciences at EY, Deloitte, and the UK Department of Health. His experiences in health system improvement translated over to Vertical Future, with the company’s goal being population health improvement through proving better infrastructure for food and pharma. Jamie is also a graduate of the prestigious Leadership Enrichment and Development (LEAD) programme at the U.S. Air Force Academy and holds an Honorary Bachelor’s degree in Business Economics from Buckingham University and a Masters in Energy, Trade, and Finance from Cass Business School, London.
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Natalie Campbell
Co-CEO - Belu

Natalie Campbell is an award-winning social entrepreneur and broadcaster. She is Co-CEO of Belu Water, a drinks business that puts people and the environment first. To date Belu has given WaterAid over £5.2m to bring clean water, decent toilets and good hygiene to everyone, everywhere.

Prior to this Natalie led on insight and innovation for The Royal Foundation and co-founded A Very Good Company (AVGC), a global social innovation agency that worked with brands (e.g. Virgin Media, Marks & Spencer, W Hotels and Channel 4) to embed purpose and sustainability practices.

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Anna Pierce
Director of Sustainability - Tate & Lyle

Anna Pierce is the Director of Sustainability at Tate & Lyle; a 160-year-old business-to-business ingredient producer, headquartered in the UK. Anna has reimagined the sustainability program to reflect the company’s ambitions and infuse sustainability throughout its operations. Tate & Lyle’s sustainability programs are focused on initiatives and partnerships that provide the greatest opportunity for positive impact in support of the company’s purpose of “Improving Lives for Generations”. Anna joined Tate & Lyle after nearly two decades in various Environment, Health and Safety roles at General Electric.
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Clem Schmid
Commercial Executive Vice President - Loop Global

Clem Schmid is Commercial Executive Vice President for Loop Global working closely with Loop’s partners (Brand Manufacturer, Retailers, QSR partners) to drive Loop expansion strategy and its in-market execution. She joined Loop in 2018 and has been working with approx. 200 partners since the very early stage of the project. Prior to joining Loop Clem worked 15+ years in multinational companies across FMCG, Durables and B2B: P&G, Gillette and 3M – holding several positions in marketing, global business development, innovations and sustainability. Clem holds a Master’s degree in Marketing from ESSEC Business school as well as an MBA from the Universities of Warwick (UK), Mannheim (GE) and ESSEC (FR).

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Jos Miermans
Co-Founder & Business Partner - Etheclo

Jos Miermans is the co-founder & business partner of Etheclo, a Flemish SME offering safe, sustainable & smart concept packaging with a monitoring component.

Before becoming a partner at Etheclo, he was one of the initiators of an internal innovation project at bpost, the Belgian Postal Operator, “bpost on appointment”. He has extensive experience in the organization, preparation, transport, and customer service for complicated goods such as perishable goods and medication.

Always on the bridge between sales, automation, and services, Jos is currently responsible for business development, innovation & sustainability within Etheclo.

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Emma Scott

Emma Scott
Programme Manager - Agriculture (Fauna & Flora International)

Working within the world’s oldest international wildlife conservation organisation, Emma focuses on helping farmers to work with biodiversity and the ecosystem services they rely on, aiming to maximise benefits to both people and nature. Her focus is on supporting smallholders in making sustainable on-farm decisions to support food production long-term. 

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Eddie Stableford
Founder - Street Food Box

Eddie is the creator and founder of Street Food Box, an innovative, compact, infinitely reusable and environmental food to go container. Prior to conceiving Street Food Box, Eddie had a career spanning 42 years in food and drink branding and innovation and it was this expertise that enabled him to take his concept to reality and to market launch in less than 18 months. He believes we can all play a part in reducing global food packaging waste by thinking reuse rather than recycle and indeed the business mantra is ‘Eat, Sleep, Rinse, Repeat®’ by making it easy to adopt a new relationship with packaging. Whilst we’ve become used to coffee shops selling multi-use cups, only now are food retailers trialling customers using their own boxes for deli foods and for certain self-serve foods and zero waste stores are continuing to grow in popularity. But there has been no practical, convenient, compact, fold-flat, cost-effective, multi-use food container until now. With Britain’s growing ‘food on the go’ habit generating nearly 11bn items of packaging waste a year alone (much of which is not recycled), we need to relook at our relationship with single-use food to go packaging. A survey of more than 1,200 workers found that the majority – 64% – said they bought lunch on the go more now than they did five years ago – spending £13.6bn annually. More than a quarter said this was because they were too busy to make their own. This in part is a result of the UK’s evolving food culture and growing street food movement, with 20% of workers saying there are more places to eat out now and 19% saying eating out is more tempting than it used to be. This is a very real problem which isn’t just affecting the UK of course, but a global issue common to all developed countries and Street Food Box has been conceived to do something about it right now.
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Daniele Benatoff
CEO & Co-Founder - Planet Farms

Daniele is the CEO and co-founder of Planet Farms, a leading vertical farming company based in Italy. Born and raised in Milan, Daniele achieved a BSc in Economics cum laude at the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania. Since 2002, Daniele has been living in London, where he worked for ten years for Goldman Sachs in private equity and then at the head of the bank’s internal hedge fund.

After starting his own business and managing his hedge fund, Benros Capital, Daniele ran the European business of Halcyon Asset Management. Daniele has been an angel investor for years, focused mainly on companies in the technology and consumer products spaces. This passion culminated in his decision to join forces with Luca, a childhood friend, and create Planet Farms.

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Dorothy Shaver

Dorothy Shaver
Global Food Sustainability Director - Unilever

Dorothy Shaver is a Registered Dietitian focusing on food system transformation with unique experience in and passion for driving behaviour change for positive health and environmental outcomes. Over the past seventeen years she has worked across media, retail, health care, marketing, AI, and the fitness industry championing food choices to enable personal and planetary health. Dorothy’s current role is Global Sustainability Marketing Lead for Unilever’s largest food brand Knorr, in addition to a founding board member of The Food for Climate League and Senior Nutrition and Wellbeing Advisor for syd (iamYiam). She led the creation of Future 50 Foods report and Cookbook, which has collectively driven close to six billion earned media impressions in more than 95 countries as part of more than 700 million media pieces. It is a collaborative thought leadership piece in which food system issues are outlined with 50 exemplary foods identified that increase the nutrient value and decrease the environmental impact of meals. It is at the core of the Knorr brand innovation and communication strategy. Most recently, Dorothy played a major role in shaping and activating Unilever’s Regenerative Agriculture Principles. She has been a long-term sustainable nutrition food spokesperson having spoken at global conferences and events including Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity, quoted in media including TIME magazine, and featured in radio shows including NPR. In addition to this, Dorothy is a guest blogger, podcast speaker, expert contributor and food writer spreading her positive passion and drive to get the masses to fall in love with food that is good for people and the planet. Dorothy received her undergraduate degree from Framingham State University and her master’s degree in Public Health Education from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. Dorothy currently lives in a canal house in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. When you meet her, she’ll inspire you to join her in being a Varietarian moving toward the ‘Most delicious revolution that ever was’ for the benefit of people and the planet.
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Francois Mosnier
Head of Oceans team - Planet Tracker

François brings more than 10 years of experience working across finance and nature conservation. Prior to joining Planet Tracker, he was a financial analyst at Exane BNP Paribas and Capital Group, and a conservation finance specialist at Conservation Capital.
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Juliane Caillouette-Noble
Managing Director - Sustainable Restaurant Association

Juliane Caillouette-Noble came to the Sustainable Restaurant Association as Development Director in 2016 after five years of running Jamie Oliver’s programmes for improving school food and food education across the UK.

The SRA is a not for profit membership organisation committed to accelerating change toward an environmentally restorative and socially progressive hospitality sector in the UK. As Development Director, Juliane’s role included designing and developing strategic partnerships and campaigns, ensuring that the impact and influence of the SRA grows along with the size of the membership body. Juliane became the Managing Director of the SRA in January and looks forward to working with the industry to build back better and greener post Covid.

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Ivo Mulder
Head-Climate Finance Unit - UNEP

Ivo leads UNEP’s Climate Finance Unit (CFU), created in 2019. CFU brings together various initiatives and finance facilities that aim to unlock public and especially private capital towards sustainable land use with positive impacts for the climate, nature and people. Under his supervision, the Climate Finance Unit has built a portfolio of innovative initiatives, such as the AGRI3 Fund, set up by Rabobank, UNEP, Mirova Natural Capital, IDH and FMO  as part of a USD 1 billion commitment in loans that focus on financing deforestation-free commodity production. Other examples include a new Restoration Seed Capital Facility (RSCF) that stimulates private equity investment in forest and landscape restoration, the Tropical Landscapes Finance Facility (which issued an inaugural USD 95m ‘landscape bond’ in 2018), or the support for novel ventures such as &Green Fund. In addition, Ivo sits on the Steering Committee of a number of projects such as the GEF Good Growth Partnership, GEF The Restoration Initiative and the Natural Capital Finance Alliance. Over the past decade, Ivo initiated and led a number of projects that develop business cases for the private and finance sector to tackle environmental challenges. He co-founded and directed the Natural Capital Finance Alliance (NCFA). Signed by more than 40 CEOs, this initiative aims to make the link between ecosystem degradation and the financial impact this can have on banks, investors and the broader financial system. The Dutch Central Bank recently found that 36% of Dutch financial assets are at risk of ecosystem decline using NCFA’s ENCORE data. The initiative has developed various other innovative tools for the finance industry to address deforestation risks related to soft commodities, integrating water risk in the valuation of corporate bonds and stocks, as well as environmental risk integration in sovereign credit analysis (ERISC). Ivo also co-initiated the REDD+ work at UNEP Finance Initiative (UNEP FI) in 2011 to scale up private sector engagement and over the past years has led the private sector & finance work for the UN-REDD Programme, including building the economic case for governments in various countries to preserve natural capital by reducing deforestation. Ivo Mulder has over fifteen years of professional experience working for UNEP, private consulting firms and with non-governmental organisations. He has published more than fifty reports, blogs and articles and sits on the Steering Group of a number of initiatives. Ivo is a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (RSA) and a member of the Dutch Association of Sustainable Investors (VBDO). During his free time, he pursues a variety of outdoor sports such as triathlon, diving, alpine skiing and mountain hiking. Educational background Ivo holds a Bachelor and Master of Science degree in Environmental Sciences from Wageningen University, the Netherlands, with a focus on environmental economics.
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Susan Thomas
Senior Director Sustainable Commercial Activities - ASDA

Susan joined Asda in June 2020 into a new role created to drive Asda’s strategic focus on Sustainability. She “quarter-backs” Asda’s cross functional efforts across the Better Planet agenda, mobilising activities including our journeys towards net zero, elimination of waste, optimising packaging and building a greener portfolio. Susan is a member of the BRC’s Climate Action Roadmap Steering Committee and chair of the Customer Engagement pathway.

Susan’s early career was spent at Kantar in insights, analytics and retail consulting, with a particular focus on Shopper Behaviour. Prior to Asda she spent 8 years at PepsiCo in a range of sales strategy and marketing roles, most recently leading the Brand Planning process and Better For You Snacking agenda for West Europe. Susan completed an Executive MBA in 2012 with a final dissertation examining the role of retailers in the obesity crisis.

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Sofía Condés
Investor Outreach Manager - FAIRR initiative

Sofía joined the FAIRR Initiative in April 2021 as Investor Outreach Manager. She leads FAIRR’s investor outreach efforts in francophone and hispanophone countries and supports outreach activities globally. She also coordinates FAIRR’s involvement in the multi-stakeholder initiative ‘Investor Action on AMR’. Previously, she led the Innovative Finance Programme of the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN). She also worked as a Strategy Specialist at the World Economic Forum (WEF) and as an Analyst for J.P. Morgan. Sofía holds a BA in International Relations and Economics from the University of Geneva, a Masters in International Development and Economics from the Graduate Institute in Geneva (IHEID) and a Masters in Public Health and Health Economics from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM). She also holds a CFA certificate in ESG investment. She has worked on projects and initiatives in Europe, Latin America and Africa and is passionate about the role of finance in improving food systems and global health.
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Paul Irwin-Rhodes
Head of Sustainability and SHE - Greggs

Paul leads the sustainability strategy at Greggs, with key focus on delivering against their Greggs Pledge plan and Net Zero ambition. Paul originally qualified as an industrial chemist in the coatings industry before moving into regulatory law prior to joining Greggs. Since taking on his current role he has been involved in the ongoing development of Greggs long term strategy as well as engaging with Government and other key stakeholders to shape longer term strategic direction for Greggs and the wider sector.
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Sarah Wakefield
Head of Food Transformation - WWF

Sarah is the Head of Food Transformation at WWF. She joined WWF in March 2021 after nearly a decade of experience in food retail, focused on ethics and sustainability. She led the delivery of the Retailers’ Commitment to Nature announced at COP and the refresh of the WWF Basket – the ambition to halve the environmental impact of UK baskets by 2030. Her role is to ensure this ambition is met and to lead WWF’s engagement with the food industry.
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Dr Jennifer Bromley
Head of Plant Research and Development - Vertical Future

As Head of Plant Research and Development, Dr Bromley established and also leads Vertical Future’s R&D function with the goal of defining critical areas of R&D to support technology clients and to diversify the range of opportunities for vertical farm operators. She has a BA in Natural Sciences from St Catharine’s College, Cambridge and completed a Ph.D in Plant Sciences at University of Cambridge in 2009. After her Ph.D, Jen completed 3 post-doctoral research positions and later moved to work in industry reaching the position of Head of Computational Biology and Gene Discovery and member of the Global Leaf Science leadership team at British American Tobacco. It was during her Ph.D and postdoctoral research that Jen realised – and what later led her to Join Vertical Future – the importance of plant science to society and the economy through improvements to nutrition, reduced crop losses and also through the wellbeing benefits of working with plants.

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Jean Billant
Senior Business Advisor - Food Lead - ReLondon

Jean leads ReLondon’s work on food and coordinates the Food Flagship Initiative, a major three-year venture in partnership with the Ellen MacArthur Foundation and the Greater London Authority to demonstrate how a low carbon circular economy for food can be achieved in London. Jean is the lead author of the circular economy guide for food businesses “Food that doesn’t cost the earth” and co-author of the report “London’s food footprint”, analysing the flows of food in the capital and associated greenhouse gas emissions.
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Anna Turrell
Head of Environment - Tesco

Anna is Head of Environment for Tesco Plc. At Tesco, Anna is responsible for the Group’s global climate change, sustainable agriculture, sustainable diets, marine and forest sustainability agendas. Anna is also responsible for Tesco’s flagship partnership with WWF. The cornerstone of the partnership focuses around the publication of the Sustainable Basket Metric. Through the Sustainable Basket Metric Tesco and WWF aim to halve the environmental impact of the average UK shopper’s basket and invite wider industry and civil society partners to join in to achieve this shared ambition.

Prior to joining Tesco, Anna was Head of Sustainability for Nestlé UK & Ireland, where she led the development and roll out of an integrated sustainability strategy across the multi-category business. Before moving in-house, Anna spent 10 years in sustainability consultancy in Europe and Asia.

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Robin Clark
Senior Director of Global Partnerships - Just Eat

Robin grew up as a retailer, running commercial categories for both M&S and Tesco between 1998 and 2015. He joined Just Eat UK in 2015 to set up their restaurant partner perks programme building value through partnerships beginning with food wholesale, finance, card payments & utilities. Other areas of responsibility followed from sustainability and FMCG to grocery and partner e-commerce.

In 2020 after the merger with Takeaway.com he took on a wider global marketing remit to set up a team running global partnerships including sponsorships, sustainability, grocery strategy, FMCG and branded restaurant marketing. Much more importantly, he lives in North London with his wife and three children and if they haven’t exhausted him then the endurance sports usually do.

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David Farquhar
CEO - Intelligent Growth Solutions (IGS)

David joined Intelligent Growth Solutions (IGS) as CEO in November 2017. IGS is a Scottish-based agritech business, and David’s strategic appointment was made to raise investment
through a Series A and subsequent Series B funding round, recruit a world-class management team and drive global expansion.


He is a seasoned technology entrepreneur, with a track record of driving shareholder value, based upon building an empowering, collaborative Culture as a Platform for growth. Most recently he was CEO of global SaaS vendor Workplace, leading the team through a hugely successful turnaround, transformation, growth and exit delivering a double-digit money multiple return in less than 3 years. In the past 27 years he has completed almost 30 transactions as a founder/CEO, angel investor
and board director, including risk capital investments (PE, VC and angel), acquisitions and trade sales in Europe, North America and Asia.

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Tim Duret
Director of Sustainable Technology - Veolia UK

Tim has over 12 years of experience in the recycling industry and is an expert in recycling solutions. His extensive and wide-ranging experience covers plastic, recycling infrastructure design, composting, alternative fuels, and biomass. He is a member of the OPRL Technical Advisory Committee and a key member of Veolia’s Sustainable Packaging Academy. Tim’s background also includes sustainable engineering, agronomy and a masters in Environmental Technologies .
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Roberta Iley
Acting Associate Director - Forum for the Future

Roberta Iley is an Acting Associate Director for Forum for the Future, a leading international sustainability non-profit focussed on systems change with offices in London, New York, Singapore and Mumbai. Roberta leads Forum’s food work in the UK and Europe, working with a number of consumer goods companies and retailers, as well as leading globally the Great Protein Transformation Challenge. Prior to Forum, Roberta worked for CDP on zero deforestation together with consumer goods companies and investors, across palm oil, soy, cattle products and timber. More recently, her experience in PwC’s Sustainability & Climate Change practice included working on land use change and climate smart agriculture, through to being the private sector observer at the World Bank’s Forest Carbon Partnership Facility.
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Anne Bordier
Director of Sustainable Diets - World Resources Institute

Anne has spent all her career in the food industry, working in diverse roles across market research, consultancy, training, and programme management. Prior to joining WRI, she spent a large part of her career at IGD, a not-for-profit organisation which works in partnership with food and consumer goods businesses to drive positive change. This has enabled her to gain a deep understanding of how the food system operates and the challenges it faces.

During her time at IGD, Anne has built powerful networks and scaled several collaborative initiatives with a wide range of stakeholders across industry, academia, NGOs and government. These have focused on issues such as youth employability, inclusion & diversity, nutrition, food waste reduction and sustainable packaging systems. She’s initiated IGD’s flagship research into healthy and sustainable diets, in partnership with behaviour change experts and leading food businesses.

An agricultural engineer by training, Anne holds a MSc in marketing and product management from Cranfield University in the UK. She is passionate about the potential for the food system to evolve to deliver better outcomes for people and the planet.

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Isabelle Laurencin
Fund Manager - Triodos Food Transition Europe Fund

Isabelle Laurencin is the Fund Manager of Triodos Food Transition Europe Fund,  an evergreen impact Equity Fund providing patient capital to late stage ventures and mature businesses contributing to the Food transition in Europe (45mEUR size / 10 investments).  Prior to joining Triodos in 2019, Isabelle set up a startup accelerator focused on sustainable innovations in the fashion industry for Plug and Play, Silicon Valley’s most active VC. She has over 15 years’ experience in Private Equity and Venture Capital and served in multiple Investment committees and Advisory boards at both FMO and PROPARCO, development finance institutions in the Netherlands and France.

Isabelle is a board member of 5 investees of TOGF (Tipa, Beendi, Groupe Natimpact, Hari&co and Farmy) and an Advisor to the Circular Economy Club. Isabelle holds a Master from ESCP-EAP Business school.

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Svanika Balasubramanian
Co-Founder & CEO - rePurpose Global

Hailing from Oman and India, Svanika Balasubramanian is the Co-Founder & CEO of rePurpose Global, the world’s leading Plastic Action Platform dedicated to making environmental action accessible to people and companies around the world. Her platform accomplishes this by empowering anybody to go Plastic Neutral today by financing innovators on the frontlines of fighting the plastic waste crisis.

rePurpose Global is creating environmental impact for people across 26 countries and 200+ purposeful brands, ranging from up-and-coming SMEs to global Fortune 500s. On behalf of their global coalition, rePurpose now recovers over 3 million pounds of plastic waste every year, and in doing so, positively impacts 9,500+ marginalized waste workers across Asia, Africa, and South America.

Svanika is a Forbes 30 under 30 honoree, World Economic Forum SDG Champion, One Young World Lead2030 Champion, Halcyon Fellow, and graduate of The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. She is a frequent commentator on social entrepreneurship and sustainability with appearances on diverse platforms including the Nobel Prize Summit, United Nations, World Economic Forum, Sustainable Brands, and SOCAP. Svanika is fueled by two passions: pushing ahead the charge for our future circular economy and finding new ways to integrate podcasts into her day.

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Christopher Kong
Co-Founder and CEO - Better Nature

Christopher Kong is the Co-Founder and CEO of Better Nature, the UK’s highest-rated and fastest-growing tempeh brand. Since launching in early 2020, Better Nature is now listed in over 350 retail locations, is a best-seller on Amazon UK and is Mindful Chef’s preferred meat-free supplier. Better Nature is also the UK’s first and only meat-free brand that is both Carbon and Plastic Negative. They offset twice as much Carbon and Plastic as they use to make their tempeh products which have earned a Foodsteps top A-rating for their low carbon footprint. Better Nature aims to make people feel and be well by using tempeh, an Indonesian miracle food made from nothing but cultured soybeans and water. Using tempeh as the base of all of their products, Better Nature’s range is 100% all-natural, high in protein & fibre, and one of your five a day. Aside from his work at Better Nature, Chris is an avid marathon runner, a boxing enthusiast and a passionate advocate of nutritious and sustainable plant-based diets.
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Sarah Talland
Partner, Trade Mark Attorney - Potter Clarkson

Sarah is an experienced trade mark attorney and has expertise working for clients across a variety of sectors in all aspects of trade mark prosecution. This includes clearance searches, devising worldwide filing programmes and handling any official or third-party objections, as well as contentious matters.

She also has a particular interest in non-traditional trade marks such as three-dimensional marks and has published articles on the implications of particular trade mark cases. Sarah regularly speaks about trade mark matters at business events and seminars. 

She joined Wildbore & Gibbons in 2011, which subsequently became part of Potter Clarkson LLP on 1 September 2018.

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Dr. Jose V. Camacho, Jr.
Chancellor - UPLB

The UP Board of Regents elected Dr. Jose V. Camacho, Jr. as the 10th chancellor of UPLB at its 1354th meeting on Sept. 24.

Dr. Camacho was the dean of the Graduate School (GS) and a professor of economics at the College of Economics and Management (CEM).

His vision-mission statement is entitled “Future-Proofing UPLB.”

“My vision of ‘future-proofing UPLB’ is about sustaining UPLB’s relevance by developing methods, approaches, and framework to minimize the cost and impacts of shocks of future events,” he said, as he emphasized the impact of the on-going COVID-19 pandemic not only in the university but to the entire country.

“I envision a future-proof UPLB as it levels up its recognition as one of the leading regional and global universities regardless of the mode of delivery of our services,” he continued.

Dr. Camacho specified the need to future-proof UPLB’s human resources, lifelong learning and instruction system, research and innovation system, commitment to public good and social welfare, and global engagement.

“Our inspiration and at the heart of our plans are our students, faculty and staff, our alumni, and stakeholders, and for the betterment of our Filipino people,” Dr. Camacho stressed.

Prior to becoming the dean of the GS since Feb. 2012, Dr. Camacho first served as the associate dean and chair of academic programs and curriculum of CEM (2007-2012), and chair of the Department of Economics (2001-2004).

He also serves as the chair of the Technical Working Group (TWG) on Graduate Education, and co-chair of the TWG for the Expanded Tertiary Education Equivalency and Accreditation Program, both of the Commission on Higher Education.

Dr. Camacho finished in 2007 his Doctor of Economics, with specialization in Economics of Education, Labor, and Human Resource Economics at Kyoto University, Japan.

He holds a Master of Arts in Economics from Erasmus University International Institute of Social Studies in The Hague, Netherlands, and a Bachelor of Science in Economics from UPLB.

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Lana Zivanovic Ph.D, CSO InnovoPro

Lana brings 20 years of experience leading the development of alternative proteins, from discovery to finished products. Her university research programs were funded by the USDA, USEPA, USDOD and NASA.

Lana holds an M.Sc. in Biotechnology and a Ph.D in Food Biochemistry.

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Anoushka Harris
Sustainability Lead - Westmill

Anoushka Harris is the Sustainability Lead for Westmill Foods; one of Europe’s largest specialist food companies, manufacturer, and supplier of authentic Asian and Afro-Caribbean food. Their product range includes high-quality rice, spices, sauces, edible oils, flour, and noodles, which are sold to partners in wholesale as well as cash and carry, food service, grocery, and B2B. Prior to her role at Westmill, she graduated from the University of Leeds with a degree in Sustainability and Environmental Management in 2019. She leads Westmill’s Sustainability Strategy which focuses on 3 key areas: Support Communities, Reduce Waste and Promote Inclusivity. As part of our Reduce Waste pillar, a key focus is the progress against the UK Plastic Pact. They have a number of projects in place in order to meet the needs of the rapidly changing packaging landscape. She is also excited to start the first MSc in Sustainability for Business with Cranfield University which will also enable her to network with like-minded individuals across a variety of different sectors.

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Tomer Strikovsky
Venture Capital Investor - Environmental Technologies Fund

Tomer is a Venture Capital investor with the Environmental Technologies Fund (ETF Partners) a $500m AUM VC based in London, investing in sustainably. Tomer’s focus is on impactful food tech businesses and consumer. Some of his investments include The Modern Milkman, Pieter Pot, Zeelo and Tomorrow.one.
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Sara Simmonds
Founder - Sara Simmonds Impact Platform

Sara is a conscious innovator, (social) impact entrepreneur, and transformational mentor. Her list of accomplishments include pioneering the world’s first 100% sustainable luxury denim brand and was the recipient of grazia magazine’s award for sustainable entrepreneur of the year. Today, Sara is the founder of the impact platform www.sarasimmonds.com where her mentoring method helps conscious leaders and their businesses to re imagine their growth while teaching them how to hone in on their “hero products” and stand for innovation and meaning in a cluttered world.
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Amanda Carpenter BA MSc
CEO - Achill Management

Amanda’s career spans private, public and not for profit sector where she has led and implemented organisational change projects, mergers, transformational change initiatives as well as developed board level strategies for local national and international organisations. She has experience of wide scale project evaluation and of delivering complex solutions to multi stakeholder groups. As CEO at Achill Management, she oversees the delivery of the LSA, and the network for the Bar Council, and runs client engagement projects for legal and financial sector organisations helping embed a transition to net zero

She is host of the successful podcast Planet Pod  and in her spare time is a passionate campaigner for a greener and fairer world as a local Green Party candidate, as a Trustee of 5050 Parliament and of The Jubilee Hall. She lives in Suffolk with her husband who is as poet, author and arts publisher.

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Claire Smith
Founder - Beyond Investing

Claire Smith, the founder of humane investment platform Beyond Investing, is a vegan and environmentalist with 33 years experience in finance and investment at top-tier banks and investment houses

Beyond Investing creates investment programs designed for animal advocates and climate conscious investors in both public listed equity markets and venture capital.

Beyond Advisors is the architect of the US Vegan Climate Index, Europe Vegan Climate Index and Global Vegan Climate Index, a range of stock indexes which screen out all animal exploitation and fossil fuel from major market benchmarks, and the Vegan World Index, which provides a targeted portfolio of small to midcap companies relevant to the vegan trend. Beyond Advisors US subsidiary Beyond Investing is sponsor of the US Vegan Climate ETF, listed on the New Yor Stock Exchange.

Beyond Impact focuses on investment in early stage and growth companies providing vegan, plant-based and cruelty-free products and services.

Beyond Animal is a networking and funding platform for the animal-free products industry to connect, share information and collaborate, which incorporates Funding by Beyond Animal a tool for qualified investors to access direct investments in animal alternatives.

Claire is the founder of Beyond Cruelty Foundation, formed to campaign for zero animal exploitation and to fund safe havens for animals, which will also receive a portion of profits of companies under the Beyond Investing umbrella.

Previously, she was a research analyst, partner and shareholder at alternatives advisory firm Albourne Partners, covering managers globally across systematic quantitative equity, convertible and volatility and hedging strategies. Claire also led a project to expand Albourne’s proprietary database on alternatives managers and digitize the research process.

Prior to joining Albourne in 2004, Claire provided bespoke hedge fund research to London funds of funds and published well over 100 articles in the financial press. From 1986 to 1998 Claire was employed at various UBS group companies as a derivatives broker, marketer and structurer. Claire started her career in 1985 as a credit analyst at Chase Manhattan Bank after completing a Masters program in Chemical Engineering and Management at Imperial College, London.

Claire founded 100 Women in Finance in Geneva in 2007 and oversaw its growth in Switzerland through till 2014, as a member of the London Board, organizing over 100 events, including seven Galas which raised well over $1 million for charity.

From 2013 to 2018 Claire served on the Board of AVVEC, a Geneva-based charity that provides support to victims of domestic violence.

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Aliya Kumekbayeva
Sustainability Manager - Consumer Goods Forum

Aliya is the Sustainability Manager at the Consumer Goods Forum (CGF), a CEO-led organisation bringing together global consumer goods retailers and manufacturers on collaborative industry action. Aliya manages and helped launch the CGF coalitions on food waste and plastic waste, that jointly bring together over 50 leading businesses under a common strategy and set of commitments to drive positive change. Before joining CGF, Aliya worked on sustainable lifestyles and education at the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), as well as on sustainable tourism and building design at EarthCheck. Prior to that, Aliya was a community organiser for an election campaign against state deforestation at The Wilderness Society in Queensland, Australia. Aliya holds a High Honours degree in Environmental Management and Sustainable Development from the Griffith University, in Brisbane Australia.
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Mark Grant
Associate Director - Levercliff Associates Ltd

Mark worked for 23 years at Tesco at both a National and Regional level and has experience in supply chain, in-store operations, distribution as well as commercial buying. During his final 5 years at Tesco, he was responsible for developing and managing the commercial operation in Wales. Mark has a passion for developing SMEs to their full potential and worked with over 80 producers, supplying over 500 products across the Welsh Tesco Stores.

Since 2014, Mark developed the Food Category Strategy at the National Procurement Service, covering all aspects of public sector food spend across Wales. This involved regular interaction with key wholesale and foodservice partners supplying into the sector and regular interaction with producers looking to supply the public sector in Wales.

Since joining Levercliff in 2016, Mark has assisted a number of clients in preparation for meeting trade buyers, helping to shape their product offering and activity.

In 2017, the Welsh Drinks Cluster was launched which Mark leads, helping to develop the Drinks Sector Strategy with the Food and Drink Wales Industry Board and support over 170 drinks producers in Wales.

In 2020, the Sustainability Cluster was launched by the Welsh Government which Mark now leads alongside the Drinks Cluster, working with over 90 Welsh producers, academia and support organisations to improve their sustainability credentials.

Mark has over 30 year’s experience in the food and drink sector, with 14 of these being solely in Welsh food and drink.

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Lousie Palmer-Masterton
Founder - Stem & Glory

Louise is the founder of Stem & Glory, a net zero plant-based restaurant chain. Stem & Glory’s sustainability mission was celebrated at COP26 in Glasgow when they were one of the UK governments ‘Heroes of Net Zero’ Louise has taken a lengthy deep dive into sustainability and emissions reduction within their own business, and is keen to share this with other business owners, in order that we can all contribute to a greener plant.
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Brett Graham
Two Michelin-starred Head Chef and Owner- The Ledbury

Brett Graham is the award-winning, two Michelin-starred Head Chef and Owner of The Ledbury, the acclaimed restaurant in Notting Hill. Born in Newcastle, Australia, Brett started his career in a local fish restaurant aged just 15, and, after moving to Sydney to work at Banc restaurant, he won the Josephine Pignolet Young Chef of the Year Award and was soon on a plane to the UK, where he would find himself under the tutelage of Phil Howard at The Square in London. In 2005, aged 25, he opened The Ledbury in Notting Hill, widely considered to be one of the UK’s finest restaurants, serving elegant and modern British fare, including venison from Graham’s own deer park in Oxfordshire. The Ledbury has held two Michelin stars since 2012.
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Sebastien Sainsbury
Founder and CEO - Crate to Plate

Sebastien Sainsbury is the Founder and CEO of Crate to Plate, an independent, London-based, urban farming conduit, which harnesses the latest, state-of-the-art hydroponics technology and eco-friendly innovation – to grow fresh, local produce and help contribute to a more sustainable future. Sebastien and his team are strongly committed to bringing their customers the freshest and highest quality, non-GMO and pesticide-free food possible, and to helping support the entire sustainable supply chain across London. Crate to Plate and Vertical Future have recently forged a proud partnership, with Vertical Future supplying the Crate to Plate team with Container Lab solutions that are placed across London to serve local communities. By 2023, there could be as many as 100 containers in London alone.
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Mark Varney
Head of Fair to Nature

Mark Varney is Head of Fair to Nature and is responsible for leading the RSPB’s farm certification scheme promoting nature-friendly farming practices to address the biodiversity and climate change crises. He has over 25 years of experience working with the food industry, the vast majority focused on sustainability initiatives.

Prior to joining RSPB he was Director of Food and Network Development at the UK’s largest redistribution charity FareShare. He was responsible for FareShare’s partnerships with companies in the UK food industry for over 7 years, during which time volume grew from under 4 000 to over 35 000 tonnes. Mark led the development of the innovative FareShare Food Efficiency Framework and a major campaign to #FeedPeopleFirst which secured a DEFRA policy commitment and £15m in funding for charity redistribution.

Between 2004 and 2011, when Fairtrade sales in the UK grew from under £50m to over £1bn, he was Head of Commercial Relations at The Fairtrade Foundation, leading Fairtrade’s engagement with manufacturers, brand owners and retailers in the UK food and beverage sector. He worked closely with many companies in growing the UK market for Fairtrade, including businesses such as Tate and Lyle, Sainsbury’s, Cadbury’s, Starbucks and Nestlé on their major Fairtrade product launches. Mark was Director of Sustainable Business at leading behaviour change agency Corporate Culture and spent the first 8 years of his career at Procter and Gamble.

Mark attended UWC Atlantic College and is a graduate from the University of Lancaster. He studied French at Université Jean Monnet de St Etienne, Marketing at London Metropolitan Business School and an MSc in Sustainable Development and Corporate Environmental Management at the University of Surrey Centre for Environmental Strategy.

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Matthew Isaacs
Co-Founder - My Emissions

Matthew is the co-founder of My Emissions, and passionate about reducing the carbon footprint of our food. His focus is on making food carbon labelling quick and accessible to all food companies, inspiring people to make more sustainable choices.
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Lauren Smith
Marketing Manager - Levercliff Associates

Lauren joined Levercliff in 2017 is heavily involved with Levercliff’s delivery of the Welsh Government Drinks and Sustainability Clusters. In her work with the Sustainability Cluster, Lauren has conducted research on the key UK grocery retailers and their sustainability programmes, which has been presented back to Welsh suppliers, allowing them to get closer to the expectations and requirements of their trade customers. Additionally, Lauren works closely with the Levercliff Consumer Insights team during their numerous pieces of research on the UK consumer and their attitudes and behaviours towards sustainability. Lauren is also very familiar with B-Corp and undertook training to become a B-Leader in May 2021. The knowledge and skills developed during this training has enabled Lauren to better support Welsh suppliers in the Cluster on their journey towards B-Corp certification.
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Lousie Palmer-Masterton
Founder - Stem & Glory

Louise is the founder of Stem & Glory, a net zero plant-based restaurant chain. Stem & Glory’s sustainability mission was celebrated at COP26 in Glasgow when they were one of the UK governments ‘Heroes of Net Zero’ Louise has taken a lengthy deep dive into sustainability and emissions reduction within their own business, and is keen to share this with other business owners, in order that we can all contribute to a greener plant.
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