As CTO of Land O’Lakes, Teddy Bekele has a passion for researching, developing, and implementing innovation technology solutions to help ag retailers and farmers produce more nutritious food while using fewer resources in new and sustainable ways. He holds an MBA from Indiana University and a BS in Mechanical Engineering from North Carolina State University. He has lived on three continents and speaks fluent Ethiopian and Italian.
Kevin Lang leads the agriculture business of PrecisionHawk, a commercial drone analytics and services company that uses aerial mapping, modeling, and a cloud-based analytics platform specifically designed for precision agriculture to aid agriculture decision-making. He advises clients on how to capture value from aerial data collection, artificial intelligence, and advanced analytics in addition to delivering implementation programs. He has held previous roles with Deloitte Consulting, the World Economic Forum, and John Deere.
Justin Metz’s responsibilities at 12,000-acre Bowles Farming include food safety compliance; training; the company’s use of the MyJohnDeere operations system; GPS systems; and, as a Part 107 license holder, chief pilot for drone operations. His prior experience spans several capacities including automated transplanting, pull-behind tomato harvesting, and most recently as R&D lead in the automation of a watermelon packing facility. He also is owner of CenCalDrones a photography and consulting company, where he focuses on helping clients streamline their drone operations.
Georgiana Francescotti joined ADAMA in 2013, bringing 16 years of digital transformation and communication experience to the agricultural world. Her role is to inspire colleagues around the world to think outside of the box and come up with solutions that help ADAMA’s customers obtain better crop quality and yield. She also focuses on understanding the threats the agricultural industry is facing, then finding the right partners and building relationships to offer farmers just the right service to meet these threats and turn them into opportunities.
Chris Paterson leads North American activities for xarvio Digital Farming Solutions at BASF. He has been involved with agronomy and agribusiness across North America for 25 years, and for the past ten years has been directly involved with the development of new business applications and value streams around the digitization of farming, agribusiness, and agri-food with particular focus on the intersection of strategy and technology. He has a background as a farmer, an agronomist, an investor, and an entrepreneur.
Jim Sulecki is Meister Media Worldwide’s executive content lead. A 30-plus-year veteran of agricultural journalism, he oversees all the company’s print, digital, and event content for its many brands, maximizing the company’s editorial strength and developing new sources of content to serve the agricultural market’s growing demand for quality round-the-clock intelligence. He has covered precision agriculture since its earlier days in the mid-1990s and now leads the company’s technology-focused, cross-market and cross-brand Global Precision Initiative.
Joe Tevis owns and operates Vis Consulting, offering advice in precision agriculture with an emphasis on collecting quality data as well as pursuing innovation opportunities. He began his career in precision agriculture with a postdoctoral research appointment at Texas A&M University studying the application of geo-statistics in cotton. He moved to industry in 1995 with Ag Chem Equipment providing leadership in precision ag machine control and data management systems, followed by work with AGCO and Topcon Precision Ag.
Ofir Schlam and his three co-founders started Taranis in 2015 with a mission to help farmers protect their crops more efficiently. Schlam is a fourth-generation farmer, raised in Israel in a family of farmers who have grown cotton and wheat for four generations. For his military service he served in an elite technological unit of the Israeli Prime Minister’s office, developing and leading groundbreaking technology projects. In his last position before starting Taranis he managed an R&D department of 15 software engineers on classified projects.
Dr. Michael Stern serves as a member of the Executive Leadership Team and as Head of The Climate Corporation/Digital Farming for the Crop Science division of Bayer. He leads a diverse team that develops digital tools to help the world’s farmers understand their fields in ways that have never been possible before. Before joining Bayer, Stern was CEO of The Climate Corporation and a member of Monsanto’s Executive Team, and before that led Monsanto’s Row Crop Business in the Americas.
Sky Rubin has worked in the remote sensing industry since 2007 across multiple verticals including agriculture, engineering, and oil and gas. Based in the Airbus office in Fort Collins, CO, he is responsible for the company’s agricultural and environmental accounts in the Americas and focuses on helping develop custom solutions to maximize efficiency and provide value to his clients.
