Before joining 80 Acres Farms, Victor was responsible for securing a long-term food supply for Walmart’s growth demand. From 2010 to 2020, Victor developed direct supply chains from Mexico to the US and later, as Director of Agricultural Strategy, led Produce Resilient Sourcing at Walmart Inc. From 2000 to 2010, Victor worked with Nature Sweet Tomatoes, as Vice President of Business Development, launching branded flavorful snacking tomatoes. Victor started his professional career on a family farm in Tampico, Mexico and for fourteen years operated as an export grower shipping produce to the US market. Victor holds a BS in Agronomy and an MS in Horticulture from Texas A & M University.

AgroUrbana integrates and develops advanced technologies to grow quality vegetables in an efficient and sustainable way throughout the year and in locations where agriculture does not exist today. Vice President of Chile California Council y Mentor of Chile Global Ventures from Fundación Chile. Previously, he spent 10 years developing the solar industry in Latam as Head of Project Development and Chile Country Manager for First Solar and as Co-Founder and CEO of Solar Chile. Industrial Engineer Degree from Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile and MBA from Haas Business School, UC Berkeley.

Christine was inspired by her son’s interests in Vertical Farming and founded the AVF in 2013 with a group of like minded young people. Since then she has been the Chairwoman of the association. The AVF are raising awareness and building a network of like-minded people for the implementation of Vertical Farming around the world. Christine has a background in studying political science, sinology and philosophy at Munich University - which was the starting point for her interest in international work. She has worked in different Asian countries which has given her experience and deeper insight in the culture and people. In Germany, she benefited from this as a project manager for risk analysis and crisis management. Networking was always easy for Christine and she founded the Asia Network Information Center – a research and project organisation bridging East and West. Later on, as the representative for the Konrad Adenauer Foundation in China, she took responsibility in different areas and led a German-Chinese Management Institute, initiated environmental protection and poverty alleviation projects, as well as engaged in women’s programs.

A globally recognized expert in the engineering of sustainable biological and agricultural systems, his technical expertise in both engineering and biology provides the platform for engineering designs in various agricultural and biological systems with emphasis on optimizing biological and agricultural productivities while fostering resource sustainability and environmental protection. Prof. Cuello has designed, constructed and implemented varied types of engineered agricultural or biological systems, including those applied in bioregenerative space life support, hydroponics, tissue culture, and industrial mass production of algae, plant cell and microbial cultures for production of biomass, nutraceuticals, pharmaceuticals, etc. He is the Principal Inventor of the patented algae photobioreactor series -- the Accordion photobioreactors -- and is the creator of the Minimally Structured, Modular and Prefabricated Vertical Farm design (the Vertical Greenbox® Solution) that is considered an archetypal design for Vertical Farming 2.0. Prof. Cuello conducted his postdoctoral research in the Controlled Ecological Life Support System Division at NASA John F. Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida as a U.S. National Research Council Postdoctoral Research Associate. He earned his Ph.D. in Agricultural & Biological Engineering, with Minor in Chemical Engineering, from The Pennsylvania State University in 1994. He also earned two M.S. degrees (Agricultural & Biological Engineering; Plant Physiology) from The Pennsylvania State University. He obtained his B.S. in Agricultural Engineering (cum laude) from the University of the Philippines at Los Banos. He is a lifetime Visiting Professor at Zhejiang University in Hangzhou, China, a Faculty Fellow at the Innovation Center of the Ateneo de Manila University in the Philippines, and a Visiting Professor at De La Salle University in Manila, Philippines.

She pursued further studies where she obtained a Degree in Marketing & Communication. Qualifying as Marketing Expert in her Category thereafter an MBA. Josephine worked her way up into senior management positions with global organizations, focusing on marketing and sales of consumer luxury goods and services in foreign markets, enabling her to reach the strategic management level in various multinational companies in Switzerland. In addition, Josephine has more than 20-years’ experience in executive education enabling her to develope instructional programs and curricula for learning institutions. She is still a very dedicated Language and Communication instructor that continues: To foster positional learning environments for students with diverse learning difficulties; to maximize individual student performance; and to develop student interest in all learning environment. Since a very young age, Josephine has been involved in humanitarian projects, leading her to visit various communities in Africa where she actively engages herself in various programs on food security while running various outreach programs. The Vertical Farming movement has become a passion for Josephine; she sees it as a necessity to teach future generations about the next step to Agriculture by using state-of-the-art technologies brought forward. By doing this, she is actively involved in agriculture policies, performance, structure, growth while economically empowering the Youth of Africa.

She brings two decades of expertise in federal policymaking, advocacy, non-profit management, and corporate law – as well as outside-the-box thinking, creativity, an adventurous spirit, and the courage to take big leaps to create change. Previously, Marni was the head of government affairs and general counsel for the Organic Trade Association, counsel to the United States Senate Judiciary Committee, and a corporate antitrust attorney. A Louisiana native, Marni is a graduate of The George Washington University, and received her J.D. with honors from the University of Chicago Law School. Besides her professional skills she has a passion for cooking delicious local food, and earned a Culinary Arts diploma from Le Cordon Bleu in Paris, France.

Over the past years Hort Americas has had a special focus on horticultural lighting, hydroponics substrate and nutrient management making them one of the leading resources for greenhouse and vertically farmed vegetable growers. He is also owner of UrbanAgNews.com (online education content provider) and was a founding partner of the Foundation for the Development of Controlled Environment Agriculture and the International Congress on Controlled Environment Agriculture in Panama. With over 20 years of industry experience, Chris is dedicated to the commercial horticulture industry and is inspired by the current opportunities for continued innovation in the field of controlled environment agriculture. Chris is a leader in providing technical assistance to businesses, including commercial greenhouse operations, state-of-the-art hydroponic vegetable facilities, vertical farms, and tissue culture laboratories. In his role at Hort Americas he works with seed companies, manufacturers of horticultural supplies and equipment, growers and universities regarding the development of projects, new products and ultimately the creation of brands. Chris’ role includes everything from sales and marketing to technical support and general management/owner responsibilities.

Daniel is a retail, food services, and gastronomy sales-expert with a strong startup and entrepreneurship affinity. Being a business pro (MBA) and having gathered tech and nutrition experience at Foodora (Rocket Internet), Daniel is currently leading the commercial activities at Infarm, ready to revolutionize where, what and how we eat. His client portfolio includes: Kroger in the USA; Sobeys, Safeway and Thrifty Foods in Canada; Marks and Spencer, Whole Foods, Selfridges, and Budgens in the UK; Edeka AG, Aldi Süd, Kaufland, Metro AG, Bünting Ag (Combi and Famila), Selgros, Globus, REWE Group, Dohle (HIT), and Markant in Germany; arrefour, Auchan, Intermarche, Casino Group, Monoprix, System U in France; as well as Migros (Switzerland), Coop and IRMA (Denmark), Albert Heijn (Netherlands), and Kinokuniya and Summit in Japan. Online clients also include Farmdrop (UK), Amazon Fresh (DE), Flink (DE), Gorillas (DE, UK, NL), Farmy (CH), and Mon Marche (FR).

After studying the global food industry and engaging in multinational projects of global organisations, she joined a private research/consulting institute in Tokyo as a researcher specialising in the technology advancement for global food production systems. She has been conducting international field research on the Vertical Farming / Controlled Environment Agriculture industry since 2008, and has published numerous research papers. She has been a research project manager for a national project on artificial intelligence- a phenotyping- based smart plant factory system for environmental control and breeding. Since 2015, she has joined the Japan Plant Factory Association. She is also the chief executive officer of E*Green Lab Inc.

As a leader in the industry, Daniel has worked in both sales and supply chain optimization and has built sustainability programs for companies such as Shamrock Foods, Keysource Foods, and ALDI. While at Shamrock Foods, Malechuk led the retail division and drove explosive revenue and profitability growth and expansion across the Southwest. Daniel also served as Vice President at Keysource Foods, where he led company strategy and sales operations and negotiated contracts with some of the world’s largest food companies, including ConAgra, Carnival Corporation, PF Chang’s, ALDI, and Sysco. Daniel began his career as a District Manager at ALDI, where he helped the company expand into new markets and was subsequently promoted to Director of Corporate Purchasing at ALDI’s US headquarters. There he headed several of the company’s perishable programs and focused on global sourcing, purchasing, marketing, and product development. In addition, he developed and spearheaded the company’s corporate seafood sustainability policy and developed a product that won the national Private Label Manufacturers Association’s Salute to Excellence award. Outside of work, Daniel is an avid outdoorsman, triathlete and pilot who lives in Orlando with his wife, four children and two dogs. Malechuk has served on the boards of several non-profit organizations and he and his family frequently volunteer at a variety of community service organizations focused on the elderly and homeless. Daniel holds a BA in Business Management and Marketing from North Carolina State University where he was a Park Scholar and an Executive MBA from the University of Arizona.

She conducts research to study nutrition and flavor of space-grown crops, supports science in a variety of space station hardware, and works with external investigators. She is active in education and outreach programs related to plants in space. She has a BS in Plant Science from Cornell, a PhD in Plant Biology from Penn State, and postdoctoral research from Purdue and Kennedy Space Center. She has worked in the areas of plant space biology and bioregenerative life support.

He has extensive experience in plant production and equipment design, and drives Plenty’s ground-breaking plant science to deliver industry leading yields of delicious fresh fruits and vegetables. Prior to Plenty, he founded Bright Agrotech, an agriculture company that created hardware, software and services to advance the indoor and vertical agriculture industries. Nate received his Ph.D. in Agronomy from the University of Wyoming with an emphasis in vertical plane hydroponic production. He also received his Bachelor’s and Masters of Science degrees in Agriculture Science from the University of Wyoming.

She covers the international fresh fruit and vegetable sectors and published numerous articles and reports on various topics including vertical farming, the Dutch glasshouse sector, and sustainability. Indoor farming is one of her key focus areas. She is covering the complete supply chain from grower to consumer and has engaged with various stakeholders along the supply chain. Cindy has been a keynote speaker at several international fresh produce events such as Greentech, Fruit Logistica, PMA, the Urban Greenhouse Challenge, Future of Food. Her research and analyses are key deliverables for Rabobank customers and prospects, both in the corporate and rural domains.

As Managing Director, Sanjeev is active in developing investments and managing portfolio companies as well as serving on many portfolio company boards. His portfolio work ranges from genetics, crop protection, soil health, digital/IOT, crop insurance, merchandising, indoor agriculture, novel flavour and ingredients, new protein development, unique processors and brands that will feed the changing consumer. He is passionate about the role of innovation, entrepreneurship, markets and system investing as a theory of change. Sanjeev has worked in the intersection of sustainability, technology and health in many regions, including Europe, Africa, Asia and North America. He has invested over $500 mm in venture and growth stage firms throughout his career. Sanjeev began investing as a co-founder of the life sciences practice of the IFC, the $99 billion private investment arm of the World Bank. His previous investment roles include CLSA Capital Partners, Global Environment Fund, World Bank Group’s IFC and JPMorgan. Sanjeev is a graduate of the London School of Economics and Political Science.

With a leadership background within marketing, communications and media industries, Andreas has a solid background in leading idea-driven organizations with ambitious purposes. After holding positions as executive officer at some large digital marketing and communications agencies in Sweden, he shifted focus into AgTech in early 2019, founding Swegreen together with partners. Holding an MBA in Strategy and Leadership, Andreas Dahlin now addresses all his passion to sustainable and true value-driven business. Swegreen has created an In-Store Vertical Farming platform which is taking hydroponic growing system to a hyper-locally applicable model into supermarkets and restaurants. With circular and super-efficient cultivation units – fully automated and AI-driven – Swegreen’s FaaS-concept also includes an innovative subscription-based business model.

He is also Communications Manager at The FarmTech Society, the Co-Founder of The Soya Project, and does freelance consulting work across the industry. In his work he has dealt extensively with industry standardisation, sustainability certification, vertical farming education and vertical farming policy. His expertise is in building networks and associations that maximise value for their members, and for the industry as a whole. Mark’s primary interest is in taking a systemic overview of how vertical farming can be integrated with other systems, to deliver on its promises of regenerative food production and resilient societies.

He obtained his PhD in Plant Biotechnology and did his Post-Doctoral research in Indian Institute of Scince, Bangalore, India; and in University of Delaware, USA. He also did various courses from NALSAR, Indian School of Busines, Indian Institute of Management - Bangalore, Stanford, and Harvard Universities. He is the Co-Founder of Urbankisaan, a vertical farmning company, and currently he is leading the R&D and production oprations. Urbankisaan is specialized in growing Indian vegetables in Hydroponics and focussed primarily on decentralized micro-vertical farms attached to retail outlets. Urbankisaan is listed in the top 10 most influential projects in India for the year 2020 by Project Management Institute. Recently Urbankisaan was also awarded “Start-up of the Year 2021” by Economic Times."

At STK, Elitzur led the company to successful geographical expansion and fundraising of $90 million in return for a majority stake. Prior to this, Guy served private and public companies in senior executive roles. He is a licensed CPA and earned his L.L.M. from Bar-Ilan University.

Hemant is a social entrepreneur with a vision to make a positive impact in transforming communities at the grass-root level. VeggiTech is pioneering new ideas and innovating ways to deliver sustainable farming addressing the 3 key challenges of Temperature, Water and Soil. Their farm in Zubair, Sharjah welcomes all who would like to get close to understanding how our food grows. Hemant is an active member of the Advisory Board for the Association for Vertical Farming. Hemant has also had an illustrious career in Information Technology spanning over 3 decades with Tata Consultancy Services and Emirates Group where he evolved from a Software Engineer to Chief Information Officer and now bringing Technology like Internet of things, Computer Vision, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning to create Digital Farms of the future"

Vertical Future’s mission is to improve health in cities through building a better, smarter, more sustainable food production and supply system. The company currently has its own, cutting-edge technology solutions in most major areas of controlled-environment-agriculture, multiple production sites across London, and a food brand that services more than 100 restaurants. Prior to setting up Vertical Future, Jamie worked in the Life Sciences team at EY following a secondment at the Department of Health. He holds a Master’s in Energy, Trade, and Finance; a Bachelor’s in business economics; and in 2020 is due to submit his PhD in Health Economics. Earlier in his career, Jamie spent 4 years in the United States Air Force, including several years at the USAF Academy, graduating from the Leadership Enrichment and Development Programme.

Today, YesHealth Group is one of the world’s largest vertical farming companies by production volume. Jesper Hansen is Chief Commercial Officer of YesHealth Group. Jesper received his M.A. in Chinese Studies from the University of Copenhagen, University of California, and Zhejiang University. He has extensive experience with development of vertical farming projects and has implemented several large scale vertical farms in Asia and Europe.