Svitlana has 17 years of experience in agri media and agribusiness consulting and media, and she has a wide network of agri industry contacts in Eastern European countries as well as in the Middle East, China and India.
For 10+ year Svitlana was a marketing director of APK-Inform, one of the most significant agri media and consulting companies in Eastern Europe. APK-Inform produces wide range of agribusiness periodicals, as well as market research services and big industry events (conferences). Svitlana was responsible for sales strategy of the company, developing new markets and services, for guiding key clients of the agency; she was a producer of international events of APK-Inform (Middle East Grain Congress, Oilseeds&Oils etc).
Also, in 2016-2019 Svitlana was co-founder and Secretary-General of the International Sunflower Oil Association (ISOA). Founded in Italy, ISOA was an international industry body responsible for the promotion of sunflower oil on the global level.
Svitlana is also working as a columnist (making regular publications about main agribusiness trends for Eastern European and international media). Also, she is a frequent speaker for numerous international agribusiness events in China, India, the USA, Turkey, Egypt, etc. She is a member of ESOMAR (the leading international organization for market research specialists) and the International Federation of Agricultural Journalists.
Dr. Seth Meyer was appointed USDA’s Chief Economist in January of 2020, returning to USDA after two years. Prior to his return, Seth was a Research Professor and the Associate Director for the Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute (FAPRI) at the University of Missouri. FAPRI is well known for is agricultural policy and market analysis, being called on by Congress and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) for its insight into commodity production, price, farm income and trade impacts from various agricultural policies including Farm Bill proposals, trade agreements and disruptions, and crop insurance.
Dr. Meyer was previously the head of the World Agricultural Outlook Board (WAOB) in the Office of the Chief Economist (OCE), the agency at USDA charged with bringing together USDA resources in the assessment of crops around the world. The OCE also publishes those finding in the ‘WASDE’ report which is closely watched by agricultural markets here and abroad.
Nicholas Kennedy started his career as an equity sales trader at Instinet in 1999 promoting electronic trading to large European Buy side customers from Paris and then London, before joining a Swiss Private bank and running the trading desk of their Paris office. Nicholas then moved into commodities in 2005 when he joined the sales team at Diapason Commodities Management, co-founded by Jim Rogers, in Lausanne and then in the UK, where he helped open the London office. Following this commodity hedge fund experience, Nicholas moved back into trading and held senior brokerage roles in cocoa and soft commodities at ED&F Man (MCA) and UBS in London. In 2009 Nicholas joined NYSE Liffe’s Commodities Team. Following the acquisition of NYSE by ICE and the subsequent IPO of Euronext he then led Euronext’s commodities sales team as Director and Head of Business Development before taking over as Head of Commodities in December 2017. Nicholas holds a BA(Hons) International Business from Plymouth University.
Luis María Zubizarreta has been working for companies dedicated to the export and industrialization of grains and oilseeds for more than 35 years.
He has worked for Louis Dreyfus Comercial for more than 20 years, currently as Regional Director of institutional relations and responsible for river logistics. Previously he was the Origination Manager. Also:
He has a degree in Economics from the University of Buenos Aires.
Libin Zhou is a Lead Research Analyst with the Agriculture Research in Refinitiv Commodities Content and Research. Currently, she leads crop production forecasts in China, Australia and India, as well as managing and analyzing global agricultural trade flows. Libin Zhou received her Ph.D. degree in Geography from Florida State University in 2012. She has over ten years of experience in satellite imagery processing, geospatial analysis and statistical modeling in agriculture research.
CIARA-CEC Associations represents exporters and crushing industry reach-ing 48% of national exports and 30 billion u$d trade on annual basis. Gustavo Idigoras has a degree on political sciences and a master degree on international affairs and business and a PhD in Agricultural Business Admin-istration.
He used to work as Public Affair manager for MONSANTO as well as he was Director of Business Issue Management (A Consultant group on agribusi-ness and bioenergies in Argentina) working for different chambers and companies related to food business and biofuels.
He is also International Consultant working for WTO, IDB and FAO on SPS and agriculture trade including sustainability. He was government negotiator for 18 years on market access negotiations at WTO, MERCOSUR, FTAs, CODEX, OIE, IPPC, IGC, OECD as well as he served as Argentine Agricultural Minister at European Union, based in Bel-gium, for 5 years.
Co-Secretary of the Committee on Agriculture in Special Session since 2017, Cédric Pène is more specifically in charge of Export Competition, Export Restrictions and Cotton Trade Related aspects. He has in particular been involved in the preparation and implementation of the Bali 2013 and Nairobi 2015 Ministerial Decisions on Cotton and Export Competition. He participated in the 2011 work undertaken in the G-20 context on agricultural commodities price volatility that notably led to the creation of the Agricultural Market Information System in 2012.
Moderator
Veronica runs the EMEA Commodities and Energy news file at Reuters from London. Veronica has spent the majority of her 20 year Reuters career covering commodity markets, including agricultural commodities, energy, precious and base metals. She punctuated her commodities coverage with a four year period reporting foreign exchange and government bonds, encompassing the 2008 financial crisis.
Born in Rio de Janeiro (RJ), Juliana de Lavor Lopes is currently responsible for AMAGGI’s ESG, Communications and Compliance Board. She is also an executive at the André and Lucia Maggi Foundation, the institution responsible for the company’s Private Social Investment.
Juliana joined AMAGGI in January 2006 as a Social Development Coordinator. In 2009 she was promoted to a managerial position. In 2013, she took over AMAGGI’s recently created Sustainability Board, proof of the company’s commitment to sustainable development and also of the confidence in Juliana’s work. In 2016, she also took on a leading role at AMAGGI’s Corporate Communications department. By the end of 2017, Juliana took over the new AMAGGI’s Compliance Directorship. In 2021, the board under Juliana’s leadership was renamed ESG, Communications and Compliance.
Juliana holds a degree in International Relations from the Estácio de Sá University, an MBE (Master Business Economics) in Social Responsibility and the Third Sector from UFRJ, an MBA in Corporate Communication from UNESA/RJ, a Specialization in Sustainability Leadership from Berkeley University in California, and a Specialization in Leadership and Learning for Sustainability from the Organizational Learning Society founded by Peter Senge.
Her team was responsible for some of the company’s most important achievements, such as the Round Table for Responsible Soy (RTRS) certification and the Forest Footprint Disclosure (FFD) recognition. Juliana also represented AMAGGI throughout the process of elaborating the Business Principles for Food and Agriculture in the UN Global Compact and is currently a coordinator at the UN’s Brazilian Global Compact, Food and Agriculture Thematic Group (GT).
Paul Cauberg is since 2015 responsible for ABN AMRO's EMEA soft commodities activities which are currently being carefully unwound. Prior to this role, Paul was active in various international banking roles in Brussels, Madrid, and Paris focusing mainly on derivatives transactions.
Nick Major graduated from Adams Harper University in 1985 with a BSc in Agricultural Technology and joined BOCM PAULS the same year. Since then, Nick has had a number of roles with the Company in sales, general management and marketing across all species groups. In July 2012, BOCM PAULS became part of ForFarmers which is now the largest animal feed company in Europe operating in the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, Poland and the UK. Nick has responsibility for Corporate Affairs across the company. In this role, he leads on sustainability and policy development and represents the Company on a number of national and European industry organisations. Nick is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Marketing.
In addition to his roles within ForFarmers, Nick is a member of the Board and a former Chairman of AIC (Agricultural Industries Confederation) which is the UK agri-supply industry’s leading trade association and a Non-Executive Director of CIELivestock Limited, a livestock agri-tech innovation centre in the UK. Nick is a Board Member and immediate past President of FEFAC (European Feed Manufacturers Federation) and Chair of GFLI (Global Feed LCA Institute).
Dr Bettina Baruth has many years of experience in crop monitoring and crop yield forecasting as well as scientific advise with respect to the Common Agricultural Policy. She is actively engaged in the agricultural monitoring community with Earth observation data through her co-chair role in the GEOGLAM initiative. Before joining the JRC she worked at the German Aerospace Centre.
Maurits van den Berg (PhD, Wageningen, Utrecht) is the main editor of and manages the activities that lead to the monthly JRC MARS Bulletin Crop monitoring in Europe. Before coming to the JRC (in 2013) he worked as crop & land use systems modeller, agronomist and soil scientist in several research and lecturing positions in the Netherlands, southern Africa and Brazil.
Cesar de Castro Alves is an Agronomist Engineer graduate from São Paulo State University (Unesp) - Ilha Solteira Campus (2001) with a Master's in Applied Economics (2005) from Luiz de Queiroz Agricultural College, São Paulo University (Esalq/USP). He has 12 years' experience as Senior Meats and Agribusiness analyst at MB Agro Consulting (2007-2019) until joining Itaú BBA in October 2019.
Mr. Liu Shilei is a researcher at the National Grain and Oil Information Center of China, responsible for rice market research and decision-making service through compiling rice market reports and supply-demand balance sheets. He has worked on research subjects like Outlook of China's Grain Supply and Demand Trends in the Medium and Long Term, and has been one of the co-authors of publications such as China's Grain Development Report and China's Strategic Commodity Development Report.
Justin leads Rabobank’s global research, client engagement and profiling in the animal protein sector. His team of 15 analysts spans the globe, covering developments with all the major animal protein species. Justin’s work is directed at challenging current thinking and advising animal protein companies on investment risks and opportunities from strategic issues on tomorrow's agenda. He regularly engages with the leaders of animal protein companies and farms on emerging growth opportunities and risks. Justin focuses on the issues shaping growth opportunities, such as consolidation, consumer trends, biosecurity, trade, supply chain models, sustainability and innovation. Justin has worked at Rabobank for over a decade, currently in the Netherlands and previously in Australia.
Dr. Annelies Deuss is an Agricultural Policy Analyst at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), where she leads the work on agricultural trade and manages and conducts economic research on agricultural policy issues. She is the OECD representative for the Agricultural Market Information System (AMIS) Initiative. Her recent work focuses on public stockholding policies, agricultural export restrictions, marine transportation costs and SPS measures. She also contributes to the annual OECD-FAO Agricultural Outlook, which provides market projections for major agricultural commodities, and to the Review of Agricultural Policies in India.
Prior to joining OECD, Dr. Deuss was a Visiting Professor of Economics at Carnegie Mellon University and served as an Agricultural Economist with the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations. Dr. Deuss is a Belgian national. She holds a Ph.D. in Agricultural Economics from Cornell University (USA), an M.A in Development Economics from the University of Bologna (Italy), a M.Sc in Agricultural Engineering and B.Sc in Bio-engineering from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (Belgium).
Dr. Tatsuji Koizumi is an Agricultural Policy Analyst at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), where he contributes to the annual OECD-FAO Agricultural Outlook, which provides market projections for rice and biofuels.
Dr. Koizumi is a secondment from the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF), Japan. He served as a senior economist for MAFF, Japan and a project coordinator and agricultural Economist with the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, and a guest researcher at the Economic Research Service, USDA. Dr. Koizumi is a Japanese national. He holds a Ph.D. in Agricultural Economics from Nihon University (Japan) and a B.A. in agricultural Economics from the University of Tsukuba (Japan). He has teaching experience in Japanese, South Korean, the Philippine and Peruvian University. He has published more than 20 books, 50 academic journals and 120 reports for biofuels and agricultural commodity markets.
Since 2000 Milo Hamilton has been President of Firstgrain, an advisory service for the world rice industry. From 1981-2000, he ran one of the largest rice-buying teams for retail food products in the world. He has degrees from Stanford University (BA English) and in agricultural economics from the University of Missouri (BS) and Minnesota (MS).
Mr. Hamilton has been involved, in one way or another in the rice markets for 40 years. He has been instrumental in the birth and development of the CME Group’s rice futures contract in Chicago. He has served on the boards of many rice associations, advises customers throughout the global rice marketing chain, and is senior editor of the weekly publication, the Firstgrain Rice Market Strategist. He wrote a book in 2014 on the world rice industry, When Rice Shakes the World. It explains how the world rice market really operates and where it may be headed."
Mr. Bimal Kothari is the Managing Director of Pancham International Ltd., a Company engaged in the Import-Export of Pulses, Sugar, Rice, etc. for the last 30 years.
Mr. Kothari, a Law Graduate, is the Vice-Chairman of India Pulses and Grains Association and has served as member of the Executive Committee of International Pulse Trade & Industry Confederation (World Pulses Organization) since 1993.
Mr. Kothari was also the Chairman of the Asia-Africa Committee of IPTIC since 1997 till 2002 and has been the member of the Executive Committee in the other Business Federation.
Jim Sutter joined USSEC as its CEO in 2010 after over 30 years of industry experience with Cargill, Inc. Since joining USSEC, Sutter has led strategy development to ensure that the organization’s key focus is on differentiating and building a preference for U.S. Soy, while also ensuring market access.
Rosalind (Roz) Leeck is the Senior Director for Global Market Access and Northeast Asia Regional Director at the U.S. Soybean Export Council. She is responsible for worldwide activities monitoring and addressing trade barriers and other market access issues that impact the U.S.’s ability to export soy and soy products. She is also the Regional Director for North Asia responsible for Korea and Japan.
Ryan LeGrand serves as the President and CEO for the U.S. Grains Council (USGC), a non-profit organization that promotes the global use of U.S. barley, corn, sorghum and related products including ethanol and distiller’s dried grains with solubles (DDGS).
LeGrand joined the Council in 2015 as the assistant director and then director of the Council’s Mexico office where he identified and addressed all relevant trade, technical and policy-related factors relevant to building and maintaining the market for U.S. grains and co-products in Mexico. Before joining the Council, LeGrand worked for Gavilon as the director of ingredients, located in Guadalajara, Mexico. In this capacity, he managed the company’s feed ingredients trading, import and distribution throughout Mexico. LeGrand also served as the director of exports for Hawkeye Gold, LLC where he exported DDGS to Latin America and Asia.
LeGrand earned a bachelor’s degree from Oklahoma State University in international business.
Alejandra Danielson Castillo serves as the regional director for South Asia for the U.S. Grains Council, a non-profit organization that promotes the use of U.S. barley, corn, sorghum and related products worldwide. In this capacity, Danielson Castillo evaluates, plans, coordinates, implements and manages the Council’s market development programs in the South Asia region which includes India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal.
Prior to the Council, Danielson Castillo worked in trade execution with Cargill focused on trade risk management as well as vessel and container logistics for cotton, grains and oilseeds. Danielson Castillo also gained experience as an international freight forwarder prior to entering trade execution. Before joining Cargill, she worked as a project manager for the Mayo Clinic and an associate director of admissions for St. Catherine University.
Danielson Castillo holds a bachelor’s degree in political science and a master’s degree in strategic management and organizational leadership, both from St. Catherine University.
Ronnie Tan serves as the Regional Aquaculture Consultant – Southeast Asia for the U.S. Grains Council, a non-profit organization that promotes the use of U.S. barley, corn, sorghum and related products worldwide. In this capacity, Tan assists in the Council’s market development work related to aquaculture, including activity planning, coordination and implementation.
Prior to the Council, Tan worked as the vice president for Blue Archipelago, the largest integrated shrimp enterprise in Malaysia. In this capacity, he was responsible for the downstream operations and corporate strategy. Tan also previously served as the non-executive director for Regal Springs Group, the largest integrated tilapia company in the world, where he was a board member and held a supervisory role of the Indonesian legal entity.
Tan earned a degree in environmental biology from King’s College, University of London, UK and a master’s degree in aquaculture from the University of Stirling, Scotland.
Mr. Zoltán Pulay was born in Hungary on 16 May 1961. He has got a MSC in Agronomy and is also a post-graduate in Economics and Trade. Since 2014, he has been Director of Purchasing - UBM Feed Kft. He is the permanent delegate of the Hungarian Grain and Feed Association (HGFA) to FEFAC since 2014 and a member of the FEFAC Board since June 2020. He is married and has got 2 daughters.
Philippe Mitko started his career in 1985 as an internal physical broker for the national federation of grain cooperatives (UNCAC), then became an oilseed trader in 1992 and participated actively in the foundation of Euronext futures commodities contracts, and in the management of the executing and clearing house SIGMA Terme, subsidiary of French cooperative group SIGMA. After being in charge of the national management of the relations with cooperative members of Union InVivo for grains from 2004 to 2011, he moved afterwards to a business development position for South Eastern Europe.
He is now head of public affairs of InVivo Trading, has been a GAFTA Council member from 2017 to 2019, was elected as treasurer of Synacomex, the French Union of grain and oilseeds traders, as well as President of Coceral in May 2019.
He was elected Chair of the European Commission Civil Dialogue group on “arable crops” in September 2020.
Elen Lemaître-Curri, agricultural economist, specialised in public policies, joined CIHEAM Montpellier in September 2020 as deputy director. She is seconded by the French Ministry of Agriculture and Food and will support MED-Amin network developments and partnerships. Formerly as an economist at the French ministry in charge of sustainable development, the FAO Investment Centre, and as Director of Plan Bleu for the environment and development in the Mediterranean, she contributed to sustainable development strategies and policies, and active science-decision interfaces in the region.
Darren has spent more than two decades in the commodities sector, covering different markets and industries, including mining and metals, tropical commodities and agriculture, notably grains, rice and oilseeds. He is a Senior Economist at the International Grains Council, and has experience spanning all of the body’s activities. He has presented and chaired at many international events.
Joined the IGC as an Economist in January 2016. While Alexander is involved in most of the organisation’s activities, his major focus has been on the global maize market and ocean freight of grains and oilseeds. Prior to joining the IGC, Alexander spent almost a decade in consulting and investment banking spheres in Moscow, as well as trade-related diplomatic service in London.
Leo Bastos is the Carbon Business Model Head and serves on the North America Crop Science Leadership Team. In this role, he leads a dedicated, cross-functional team that drives decisions relating to building a business in carbon for Bayer. This work includes the development of carbon markets for agriculture, prioritizing the North American Crop Science marketplace while partnering with similar teams in other regions.
Bastos has been at Monsanto, now Bayer, since 2008. Prior to taking this role, he was the Head of Global Marketing for the Centers of Excellence, based in St. Louis. Bastos also served as the Head of Marketing and Product Management for South America and was the Head of Sales in corn, soybeans and crop protection in Brazil. Before joining Monsanto, Bastos had led marketing for Johnson & Johnson’s baby brands in Brazil and worked as a consultant for McKinsey & Company.
Bastos holds a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Federal University of Rio de Janeiro – Brazil and an Executive M.B.A. from Duke University. He has previously held a position as a member of the Marketing Committee of the American Chamber of Commerce.
Bastos resides the St. Louis area with his wife and three children. In his spare time, he enjoys coaching his kids’ soccer teams, experimenting with Brazilian barbecue, and learning and playing guitar.
Dr. Bertuzzi has been Barilla’s Purchasing Senior Manager for Durum Wheat and Semolina for 15 years. Since 2018, he has been working for Areté as Senior Analyst. Among other markets, he is responsible for Durum Wheat Forecasting Services.
Nathan’s career to date has been centred around financial and commodities markets, working in both private and public sector capacities. After his first role as a junior economist in the investment banking sphere, focusing mainly on macroeconomic fundamentals and their impact on currency and bond markets, he joined the London-based International Grains Council (IGC) in 2003. As one of a small team of economists, his main focus is overseeing the Council’s grain production analysis, the global maize market, national policy developments and price reporting.
Peter is a market analyst at the International Grains Council (IGC), with a focus on assessing global supply and demand for rice as well as monitoring other markets such as oilseeds. Before joining the IGC in 2017, Peter was editor of the Live Rice Index, a specialist market publication and price reporting agency focussed on providing news and prices for the international rice market.
Diana joined the International Grains Council (IGC) as a Market Analyst in September 2016. She is mainly involved in the work on developing market information/outlook for pulses. Her other specialisation includes the sorghum and oats market. Before joining the IGC, she worked in the food sector, in both public and private organisations.
Adriana Herrera will represent Mexico as the incoming Agricultural Marketing Information Service (AMIS) Chair for 2021-2022. In 2020, she was appointed as Agricultural Counsellor to the European Union. Adriana has participated in the Committees of Agriculture at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the World Trade Organization (WTO), following domestic policies and discussions about international trade markets. She was previously General Coordinator of Trade Negotiations and Economic Studies in the Ministry of Agriculture from 2008 to 2018, participating in Mexico’s free trade agreements (FTAs) with the US and Canada, Japan, and modernization of the FTA with the European Union. She has a master’s degree in international public policy from the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) at Johns Hopkins University and a Bachelor’s in Economics from the ITAM (Mexico).
Mr. Tyler Babcock assumed the role of Agricultural Attaché at the U.S. Embassy in Dhaka, Bangladesh in 2019. Prior to serving in Bangladesh, Tyler was the Deputy Director of the Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) Agricultural Trade Office in Shanghai, China where he was responsible for promoting U.S. agricultural products in the five provinces of Eastern China. He was also an Agricultural Specialist in the Office of Agreements and Scientific Affairs – Animal Product Division where he covered the North Asia region. He joined FAS in 2015. Over his career, he has worked on a wide range of issues from international food and health regulations to market promotion. Tyler earned a Bachelor of Science degree in East Asian Studies and Business Administration from the University of Arizona in 2010 and a Master of Business Administration (MBA) from Georgetown University in 2015. He is originally from Schuyler, Nebraska.
Corinne Roux has been working for the Swiss Federal Office for Agriculture (FOAG) since March 2008. She currently works as a policy advisor in the Trade Relations Unit where she is mainly responsible for the relations between Switzerland and the EU in the area of agriculture. She has served as Switzerland's representative to the IGC since 2014 and was previously involved in the negotiations of the new Food Assistance Convention, which came into effect in 2012. In June 2020, she was announced as IGC’s Chairperson for 2020/2021. She studied law at the Universities of Fribourg (CH), Bern (CH) and Strasbourg (F) and obtained her Master of Law in 2008.
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