To keep us all up to speed on the latest people moves in agrifood, AgFunder News (AFN) publishes a monthly column of the industry’s biggest leadership changes. This month, longtime Benson Hill CEO steps down, McCormick promotes an insider to CEO, and Clear Frontier expands its team.
Are you in a new role or company? Know someone who has left? Drop me a line to share the details: [email protected].
CEA’s new CFO
Controlled environment agriculture (CEA) company Little Leaf Farms welcomed finance industry veteran Willian Hogan as its new CFO/SVP.
Little Leaf Farms’ CEO and founder Paul Sellew called Hogan’s appointment “a significant milestone” for the company and said he would be “instrumental in supporting our growth trajectory and enhancing our position as an industry leader.”
Hogan, who has decades of experience in private equity and financial management, will oversee Little Leaf Farms’ financial operations.
Without giving too much away, Hogan said there were “big things ahead” for the company in a LinkedIn post. Stay tuned.
Incredo-ble leadership
Incredo (née DouxMatox), which develops sugar reduction technology, has appointed not one but two CEOs. Kelly Thompson and David Tsivion, both existing Incredo employees, will serve as co-CEOs for the company, taking over from Ari Melamud.
Thompson, a food industry vet of more than 30 years, joined Incredo in January 2022 to serve as SVP, Head of North America. As co-CEOs, they will take charge of the “accelerated commercialization of Incredo Sugar,” including expansion across the US, Europe and Israel this year.
Tsivion has been at Incredo since 2017, serving most recently as CTO and deputy CEO. His co-CEO focus will be to oversee the science and R&D activities of the company, including driving ingredient innovation and new technology development.
Incredo’s executive shift comes on the heels of the company’s $30 million Series C raise from earlier this year.
More people moves
🍦 CPG Chobani names Thomas Ranese as its new chief marketing officer. Ranese previously served in marketing leadership roles at joins at healthcare company Abbott as well as Uber and Google.
🥣 Elo Life Systems—which is developing a natural high-intensity sweetener ‘inspired by monk fruit,’ and Cavendish bananas engineered to resist Fusarium wilt fungal disease—has appointed Alan Berry as chief scientific officer and Matt Roszell as SVP communications and corporate affairs.
🥣 Specialty ingredients company Sensient Technologies Corporation appoints Steve Morris, current general manager of sweet & beverage flavors North America, as president, flavors & extracts group. Current president Craig Mitchell will retire in Jan. 2024.
🌳 Climate Ai cofounder and CTO Maximilian Evans is retiring from the enterprise climate planning startup. He will move into an advisory role “while pursuing his new entrepreneurial opportunity.”
🥡 Restaurant point-of-sale integrator Deliverect names Joey Cheung as its “market launcher” for Asia. Cheung previously worked at Deliveroo and will lead Deliverect’s growth in the region.
🚜 FarmTrace founder Chris van den Berg steps down as CEO. FarmTrace, which offers a data analytics platform for animal farming, has appointed COO Jan Wiersma as its new CEO.
🌾 Nature’s Path cofounder Ratana Stephens has retired as CEO. Arjan Stephens, Nature’s Path Organic Foods’ current general manager and president of Que Pasa, has taken on the role of president of Nature’s Path Organic Foods.
🥛 Oat drink maker Oatly will get a new CFO, Marie-Jose David, effective Oct. 1. David arrives at Oatly from Mars Veterinary Health International.
💵 Agritech investment advisory service AIA has expanded its staff with the appointment of Jos Lovegrove-Fielden to the role of investment advisory manager. Jos joins AIA from PwC’s London practice.
Layoffs tracker
- Australian startup Bardee, which turns food waste into insect feed, let go of 30 people, more than half its workforce.
- Delivery service Milkbasket is seeing “redundancies and layoffs” now that Reliance, which acquired the startup in 2021, has kicked integration into full swing.
- Another India-based delivery startup, Dunzo has also cut staff and is postponing employee salaries for one month.
- Indoor farming startup Square Roots has laid off an undisclosed number of people after shuttering most of its container farm locations.
- Agribusiness platform WayCool has let go of roughly 300 employees as part of a restructuring meant to chase profitability.
- Ingredients company Perfect Day laid off 15% of its workforce as part of a reshuffling that includes selling off its consumer products arm, The Urgent Company.
Sponsored
International Fresh Produce Association launches year 3 of its produce accelerator