Luis Carlos Alonso started as a plant breeder at Koipesol Semillas in 1976 to become general manager in 1993. He joined Syngenta in 1999 and has been global Oilseed Expert and Business Development Lead till 2022; He has supported the introduction of HO sunflowers in most countries building IP supply chains along with different oil industries. Luis Carlos studied agronomy and biology in the University Columbia (Missouri, USA) and Sevilla (Spain, EU). Presently, he is leading his own consulting company, Bioalazor Innovaciones S.L.
Andrea Canzano has started working in the Food sector since 1999 covering different roles from Quality to Purchasing, focusing in particular on raw materials dedicated for Baby food production. Andrea joined Syngenta in 2016 as Value Chain Global KAM, developing world-scale projects addressing the needs for a sustainable sourcing strategy. He’s actually covering the role of EAME Seeds Downstream Business Development Lead, identifying ways and solutions to bring more value to the Food/Feed/Biofuel Supply Chain leveraging the Syngenta seeds portfolio in cereals and oil crops.
André cunze is co-founder of Grafite, an InVivo business unit specializing in the marketing of low-carbon agricultural raw materials, and providing solutions to farmers and cooperatives, as well as industrial customers. Our mission is to improve farmers’ incomes and make agriculture a solution fighting the Climate change. André has eight years of experience in the oilseed market as a trader in Western Europe. Graduated from AgroParisTech, he founded two companies before joining InVivo.
Timothy Durrett is an Associate Professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics at Kansas State University. He obtained his AB in Biochemistry from Harvard College and his PhD in Biochemistry from the University of Missouri – Columbia. His postdoctoral training was with John Ohlrogge and Mike Pollard ant Michigan State University. His research group is interested in better understanding the synthesis of storage lipids in oil seeds, and using that knowledge to make more useful vegetable oils.
Manuel Falcón is Sunflower Global Crop Leader at Strube, a French-German seed group. He has been working in sunflower business during the past twenty-six years, mainly at Syngenta Seeds where he was expanding the sunflower hybrids usage to East Europe. After spending three years with Pioneer, Manuel joined Strube company seven years ago in order to lead the sunflower product evaluation, the registration and the variety portfolio optimization.
Diane François is a Maize and Oilseeds Product Manager at Fenaco, an independent & large cooperative owned by 23,000 active farmers in Switzerland. Since 2020, she is in charge of planning, seeds procurement and field trials. Diane is also member of the Swiss Technical Commissions for maize, sunflower, rapeseed and pea. She is graduated from the Ecole Supérieure d’Ingénieurs en Agro-Développement International (ISTOM), France in 2012.
Roberto Herrera Lara is CEO of Del Llano Alto Oleico (DAO) since 2016. In DAO our focus is to create awareness with market competitive products for High Oleic American sustainably grown tropical oils. Roberto is an agribusiness entrepreneur with 10 years of experience in the management and execution of agro-industrial projects. He is focusing on product development and strategic sector marketing for High Oleic Palm Oil derived products in Colombia and International markets.
Anjani Kammili was working as a Principal Scientist in Plant Breeding and gained 31 years of experience in safflower breeding and castor genetic resources research. She also served as principal Investigator of All India Coordinated Research Project on Safflower. Anjani developed High Oleic cultivars, CMS system and hybrids in safflower and several high ricinoleic acid type and disease and insect resistant lines in castor crop. She is now superannuated from service at the ICAR-Indian Institute of Oilseeds Research, Hyderabad, India.
Maxime Menvielle is the Market Development Manager for sunflower crop at Lidea Seeds, the newly merger between Euralis Semences and Caussades Semences Group. Son of a farmer active in the South West of France, Maxime is graduated from the School of Agriculture in Angers, France. Maxime joined Lidea Seeds in 2017 as a commercial engineer; He is now building and deploying Lidea’ sunflower strategy in Europe and CIS.
Dmytro Neroda is Oilseeds Crop Head at Lidea Seeds Ukraine, the newly merger between Euralis Semences and Caussades Semences Group. Dmytro joined Lidea Seeds in 2020. He has been working in agriculture business during the past twenty-two years, mainly at Syngenta Seeds where he was expanding the High Oleic sunflower hybrids usage in CIS region. Dmytro is graduated in 1997 from the University of Agriculture of Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine.
Bob Parker joined the National Peanut Board, a farmer-funded research, marketing and promotion organization based in Atlanta, Georgia, as its president and CEO in 2012. He is a graduate of the University of Georgia with a degree in agricultural economics. Bob has a broad range of experience in peanuts and agriculture, both domestically and internationally. He has focused on the mission of improving the economic condition of America’s peanut farmers and their families.
Florian Rauch followed a degree in economy in Austria. Florian has been working in the oils, fats, oilseeds business for 35 years. After gaining experience in the Netherlands and picking up additional seed oil knowledge in the USA, Florian developed VFI – Oils for life as the CEO. Over the years, a wide portfolio of oils, fats and blends, for the food industry, catering service and branded retail products was established.
Terrence Riley is a registered dietitian and doctoral candidate at The Pennsylvania State University, USA. Terrence has been involved in the nutrition and dietetics field over the last seven years with a focus on treatment and prevention of chronic diseases. His current research examines how diet influences markers of chronic disease, diet quality, and the microbiome with the primary goal of translating research into clinical practice.
Davide Tessaro is Assistant Professor at the Department of Chemistry, materials and Chemical Engineering of Politecnico di Milano since 2007, and belongs to the BioCatLab research group. His whole scientific career has been devoted to the use of enzymes for the synthesis of chiral molecules. More recently, he was involved in the biocatalytical valorization of food waste. He currently teaches General and Organic Chemistry at Humanitas University.
Fabrice Turon has over 20 years’ experience in the oils & fats. He began his career with Danone group. Later at Bertin, Fabrice managed the lipid products portfolio development. As oil trait lead for Syngenta Seeds Company, Fabrice investigated various quality oil projects and he assembled a strategic output traits portfolio for oilseeds. Since 2010, he is leading the Research activities at FAT & Associés, the specialized consultancy for the lipids, oils and fats industry.
Valerio Vinotti is Seed Marketing Head at Syngenta Italia for field crops. Graduated in Agronomy at Università Cattolica of Piacenza, he started his activity in agribusiness within an Italian company with a focus on biocontrol agents. Since 2009, Valerio covered several positions at Syngenta, in sales, technical and marketing, working on different crops like corn, sunflower, soybean and cereals, with experience in crop protection and seeds market.