Speaker list

Speakers that confirmed for Agri Vision 2011 ‘Beyond Boundaries’ include:

  • Mrs Nisha Pillai

    Broadcaster & Conference moderator

    With over twenty years experience as a BBC presenter and journalist, Nisha Pillai has anchored live and rolling news for BBC World News and conducted award-winning investigations for the BBC Panorama and Money Programmes. She can currently be seen presenting 'Asia Today' for BBC World News. Nisha Pillaispent her childhood in Mumbai before moving to London. She hasa degree in Economics and worked in the City for a leading firm of merchant bankers before moving into the world of journalism and television.

    Bringing people together, fostering their dialogue and building intercultural bridges are guiding principles of her career. When away from the studio, she hosts conferences, moderates discussions anduses her media experience to train others in the corporate field. She is an experienced corporate facilitator and coaches senior executives in presentation skills at the London Business School.

  • Mr Pedro Arcuri

    LabEx Programme Coordinator, Embrapa

    Pedro Arcuri is a ruminant nutrition researcher. He qualified originally as an agronomist, then gained an MSc in agricultural microbiology (biogas production from manure) at the University Federal de Viçosa. He has a PhD in animal sciences from Cornell University USA and was R&D Associate Director for the National Dairy Cattle Research Centre, 2004–2008. He now is Coordinator for Embrapa’s European Laboratory Abroad (LabEx Europe) based in Agropolis International, Montpellier, France, and teaches rumen microbiology graduate courses at universities in Sao Paulo and Minas Gerais state in Brazil.

  • Mr Wout Dekker

    Chief Executive Officer, Nutreco

    Wout Dekker graduated from Wageningen University, the Netherlands, in Animal Science. He started his Nutreco career as Research and Development Manager for Trouw International's fish business in 1983. From 1988 to 1991 he managed the Chilean business before returning to various managerial positions in the Netherlands. He joined the Executive Board of Nutreco in January 1996 and became Chief Operating Officer in January 1999. Wout Dekker was appointed Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Executive Board of Nutreco N.V. on 1 July 2000.

  • Ms Louise Fresco

    Professor, University of Amsterdam

    Louise Fresco is an authority in agriculture, food and environmental issues. Posts held after earning her PhD at Wageningen University include a professorship at Wageningen and Assistant Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. She currently is Professor at the University of Amsterdam focusing on the foundations of sustainable development in an international perspective, and holds positions at several other universities. Being on the Supervisory Boards of Unilever and the Rabobank enables her to bridge across public service and private enterprise.

  • Mr Sam Graham-Felsen

    Media Specialist - Chief Blogger Obama Campaign

    Sam Graham-Felsen is a consultant and regular speaker on how the Internet is changing politics, non-profit activities and businesses. As chief blogger and ‘narrator-in-chief’ for Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential campaign, he recognized the power of ordinary people and helped them organize by using social media. He sees an explosion in digital media in marketing with activities such as social networks, videos, blogs, forums, instant messaging, mobile marketing and email marketing to harness the power of customer engagement and word-of-mouth propagation of the marketing message.

  • Mr Johan van de Gronden

    Chief Executive Officer, WWF Netherlands

    Johan van de Gronden became Chief Executive Officer of WWF The Netherlands and member of the Executive Team of the global WWF network in 2006. With every 6th Dutch family supporting the work of WWF, the organisation is the leading green charity in the country. Prior to joining WWF, he served in the Dutch Foreign Service, the United Nations Development Programme and held senior managerial positions in business. Outside his home country he has worked and lived in the Guyanas, South Africa and Scandinavia.

  • Mr Tarun Khanna

    Professor, Harvard Business School

    Tarun Khanna is Director of Harvard University’s inter-disciplinary South Asia Initiative, and the Jorge Paulo Lemann Professor at the Harvard Business School. An expert on emerging markets, he writes extensively in economics and management, is an occasional editorial contributor, and was recently elected a Fellow of the Academy of International Business. Khanna is the author of Billions of Entrepreneurs: How China and India are Reshaping their Futures, and Yours (Harvard Business Press, 2008), and co-author of Winning in Emerging Markets: A Roadmap for Strategy and Execution (Harvard Business Press, 2010). He serves as a board member of several publicly traded and venture-backed companies worldwide, as well as of non-profits in the U.S. and India. Khanna holds a BSc in Engineering from Princeton University and a PhD in Business Economics from Harvard University.

  • Mr Martin Jager

    Senior Vice President, Head of Animal Nutrition business, BASF SE

    Martin Jager is Senior Vice President, Head of Animal Nutrition Business, BASF SE. Prior to joining BASF SE in 2004, he held various management positions in the nutrition industry: Vice President, Head of Corporate Innovation and Managing Director of Celanese Ventures; COO at Trespaphan GmbH; and Vice President, Innovation and Market Introduction at Nutrinova GmbH. Jager is an Advisory Board member at Sherbrook Capital (Boston), CH Reynolds Corp. Finance (Frankfurt), Frankfurt Innovation Center for Biotechnology (FIZ, Frankfurt), and the Federation of European Specialty Food Ingredients Industry (ELC, Brussels).

  • Mr Berry Marttin

    Member of the Executive Board, Rabobank Nederland

    Berry Marttin is a member of the Executive Board of Rabobank Nederland and is responsible for the world-wide Rural and Retail Division of Rabobank International. He joined the bank in 1990 as a trainee after completing his degree in business administration in Brazil, where he was born and raised as the son of Dutch emigrants. His career has taken him to managerial positions in Curaçao, Hong Kong and Indonesia and he served as Deputy General Manager of Rural Banking in Australia and New Zealand.

  • Mr Gavin Neath

    Senior Vice President Sustainability, Unilever

    Gavin Neath is responsible for Unilever’s sustainability initiatives around the world. He joined Unilever in 1977. Over the intervening years he has worked in the UK, France, Belgium and South Africa. From 1998 to 2004 he was Chairman of Unilever Foods UK, followed by being Chairman of Unilever UK until 2006. He was also President of the Food and Drink Federation and a Member of the Development Board of the Royal Court Theatre. In 2007 he was awarded the CBE for services to the UK food industry.

  • Mr Knut Nesse

    Chief Operating Officer Aquaculture, Nutreco

    Knut Nesse has an MBA from the Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration. After working as Chief Accountant with the Scana group in Stavanger, Norway, he joined Skretting Norway in 1995 as Chief Accountant. Following a two year assignment as Finance Director of Scana’s joint venture in China, he returned to Skretting as Controller. He became Managing Director of Skretting Chile and in 2006 was appointed Managing Director of the Skretting Salmon Feed business joined the Nutreco Executive Board in 2009 with responsibility for the aquaculture businesses.

  • Mr Raoul Oberman

    Director, McKinsey & Company

    Raoul Oberman has a doctorate in economics from Frankfurt University. At McKinsey, he mainly works with energy sector companies, financial and public institutions throughout Europe. As leader of the Biosystems Practice at McKinsey, he covers biofuels, biomass-based power generation, biochemicals and REDD (reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries). He has advised agricultural companies on energy crop development strategies, public institutions on building biomass hub positions and supported utilities growing their commodities trading/risk management. For six years he worked in Korea, China and Indonesia.

  • Mr John Roberts

    President John Deere Water, John Deere

    John Roberts earned a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Southern California and a MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business. He is President, John Deere Water, a position he's held since September 2009. Roberts is responsible for managing Deere's global water business, John Deere Water. He is also a member of the Innovation Growth Council. He joined Deere & Company in 2006 with the company's acquisition of Roberts Irrigation.

  • Mr Andrew Seidl

    Head - Global Economics and the Environment Programme, International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN)

    Andrew F. Seidl is Head, Global Economics and Environment Programme with the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), based in Gland, Switzerland. Prior to joining IUCN in 2009, Seidl held university professorships in the US, the UK, and Costa Rica and conducted research on the agriculture-environment interface for the UN-FAO and EMBRAPA-Brazil. His recent work appears in professional journals including Ecological Economics, Regional Science, Environmental Policy and Management, and Economic Systems Research and in popular press including New Europe, the OECD Observer and World Conservation.

  • Mr Robert Swan, OBE

    Polar Explorer and Environmental Leader and the first person ever to have walked to the North and South poles

    Born in 1956 Robert Swan graduated with a degree in Ancient History at Durham University. Fascinated by polar exploration since the age of 11, he began raising the funds needed to walk to the South Pole. It took five years and in 1984 he set sail for Antarctica. After over-wintering, he and two companions set out to walk to the pole, arriving in January 1986 after 70 days without radio communication or back-up support. Three years later, Swan and his team walked to the North Pole.

  • Mr Jerry Vergeer

    Chief Operating Officer Animal Nutrition, Nutreco

    After graduating from the University of Guelph, Jerry Vergeer joined Maple Leaf Foods (Canada) in 1984. Having held various management positions, he was appointed President of Maple Leaf Animal Nutrition in 2004. Following the acquisition of Maple Leaf Animal Nutrition by Nutreco in 2007, he led Nutreco Canada as Group President. Vergeer was appointed Executive Vice-President Agriculture and member of the Executive Board of Nutreco in 2009. Earlier this year he became Chief Operating Officer of Nutreco Animal Nutrition.