Food Program

Jay Watson leads efforts to advance progress on General Mills global impact initiatives, notably the 2030 regenerative agriculture commitment and enterprise climate ambition. In his role, Jay collaborates with farmers, farm advisors, NGOs, suppliers and retailers to deploy programs seeking to improve ecological and economic outcomes of agricultural systems in targeted supply sheds.

Prior to joining the Global Impact Team in 2017, Jay spent 10 years in a variety of buying roles within the company’s global sourcing organization. Jay holds B.S. in Finance and a B.S. in Economics from Arizona State University and a MBA from the University of Minnesota Carlson School of Management.

Renee designs and implements social impact and sustainability initiatives that help enterprise clients reach their CSR & Sustainability goals through crafting actionable strategies, driving behavior change, partnering with nonprofits, sourcing responsibly from diverse suppliers, and engaging employees with opportunities to connect and give back to the community.

Themes of sustainable development, investing in local communities, supporting SMEs and entrepreneurs, and communications weave through every role Renee has had. From supporting micro entrepreneurs in rural Mexico, to connecting Italian businesses to the US market, to managing conservation initiatives in the Amazon and Costa Rica, she has championed equitable and sustainable business and community development.

Patrick O. Brown is Chief Visionary Officer and founder of Impossible Foods, a company at the forefront of making nutritious, delicious meat and dairy products from plants to satisfy meat lovers and address the environmental impact of animal farming. The idea for Impossible Foods came to Pat while he was on sabbatical from his position as an HHMI investigator and professor of biochemistry at the Stanford University School of Medicine. In reflecting on how he could use his training and experience to make the largest positive impact on the world, he realized there was a way to make delicious, affordable meat and dairy products, directly from plants – that would be better for the environment and for consumers. In 2011, Pat chose to devote himself full time to Impossible Foods. After receiving his BA, MD and PhD (in Biochemistry) at the University of Chicago, Pat completed a residency in pediatrics at Chicago’s Children’s Memorial Hospital. As a fellow with Mike Bishop and Harold Varmus, he defined the mechanism by which HIV and other retroviruses incorporate their genes into the genomes of the cells they infect. At Stanford, Pat and colleagues developed DNA microarrays – a new technology that made it possible to monitor the activity of all the genes in a genome – along with the first methods for analyzing, visualizing and interpreting global gene expression programs. He pioneered the use of gene expression patterns to classify cancers and improve prediction of their clinical course. He has also been a leader in making scientific and medical research results freely available to scientists, physicians and the public. With Harold Varmus, then Director of the National Institutes of Health, and Berkeley professor Michael Eisen, he founded the Public Library of Science, a nonprofit scientific publisher that has transformed the publishing industry by making scientific and medical research results freely available to the public.

Leah Penniman is a farmer, educator, soil steward and food justice activist. She is co-director and program manager of Soul Fire Farm in Grafton, New York, and the author of "Farming While Black: Soul Fire Farm's Practical Guide to Liberation on the Land."

Sarah Nolet is a writer, speaker, and recognized food systems innovation expert. Sarah is Co-Founder & General Partner of Tenacious Ventures. Sarah holds a Masters in System Design and Management from MIT, and a B.S. in both Computer Science and Human Factors Engineering from Tufts University, where she was a three-sport varsity athlete and All-American soccer player.

Cristian Barcan's past efforts in promoting and teaching sustainable development guidelines and whole-chain traceability practices have brought him recognition from global food market chain participants, trade organizations, and various government associations. As a result, Barcan is frequently invited as a speaker at various sustainability and food safety trade shows, conferences, and events around the world. Barcan has an extensive sustainability and traceability experience built over the past decade as a global sustainability project manager for BASF Nutrition & Health. Educated in Mathematics and Computer Science, over the years Barcan has held various other project and business management positions in Information Technologies, Business Management, Electronic Commerce, Marketing, and Human and Animal Nutrition. A selective list of accomplishment over the years includes: • Creating, implementing, and globally managing SET – a BASF Nutrition & Health service focused on helping brand owners creating and marketing more sustainable consumer goods. • Initiating membership and active leadership support as part of the BASF team in the Wal-mart initiated and industry supported Sustainability Consortium. • Speaking engagement as key note speaker or panelist at various global food industry conferences such as IFT, AgriFood, Supply Side West, Consumer Goods Forum, GS1, Sustainable Brands, Asia Pacific Business & Sustainability Council, Grocery Manufacturing Association, VIV, Food Safety Summit, Food Traceability Summit, etc. • Initiated together with IFT a US National Traceability Initiative meant to provide guidelines for achieving interoperability across the entire food supply chain. • Core team participation in drafting the GS1 Global Traceability Standards together with other organizations such as Nestlé, Wal-Mart, Syngenta, Carrefour, Procter & Gamble, Canadian Produce Marketing Association, Grocery Manufacturers Association of America, Food Marketing Institute, etc. • Various sustainability and whole-chain traceability focused discussions with top leaders at FDA, USDA, Department of Homeland Security, EPA, National agencies of various countries in Asia Pacific and Australia, and the European Union.

Ethan is a farmer and the Chief Innovation Officer at HowGood, the Sustainability Intelligence Platform. He manages innovation partnerships with Fortune 500 Brands, Retailers, and Suppliers through the world's largest product sustainability database, which covers 247 impact attributes across 33,000 unique ingredients and 2 million products. Ethan leads HowGood's Regenerative Innovation working groups and is the author of Regenerative Enterprise and the Levels of Regenerative Agriculture.HowGood is a Saas Sustainability Intelligence Platform with the world's largest product & ingredient impact database. We partner with Restaurants, Brands, Retailers, and Suppliers to unlock the regenerative potential of global food systems.

Deemed "the woman who helped start the waste-free movement" by Consumer Reports, Dana Gunders is a national expert and strategic advisor for food waste reduction. She focuses on solutions that prevent surplus food from occurring, as those are the solutions with the highest financial and environmental return. She has worked with Google, Walmart, Four Seasons Hotels, Climate Collaborative, and others. Some of her proudest achievements include authoring Waste Free Kitchen Handbook, testifying in Congress, and helping to launch both the food-waste think tank ReFED and the $100M Save the Food campaign. Her work has been featured by John Oliver, NPR, Fox, New York Times, National Geographic, and hundreds of other outlets. Learn more at www.nextcourse.co.

Ania Madalinska serves as International Climate Smart Agriculture Programs Lead at the USDA.

Jane Franch is the Sr. Director, ESG at Pivot Bio.