About
Who We Are
At Grow Further, we engage farmers, scientists, and individuals in participatory innovation for global food security and sustainable agriculture.
Our members come from different backgrounds, but we all come eager to learn from each other, invest in the future of food, support scientists with overlooked ideas, and help small-scale farmers.
Our Management
Core Team
Advisory Committee
Christine Xu
Communications &
Marketing Consultant
Christine Xu
Communications and Marketing Consultant
Eric Momanyi
Board
Member
Eric Momanyi
Board Member
Iquo Essien
Marketing & Communications Specialist
Iquo Essien
Marketing and Communications Specialist
Iquo began her career at a communications firm helping clients like the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Global Health Program raise awareness of critical health issues like HIV/AIDs and malaria among policymakers, the media, and the public. Iquo directed communications and marketing at Culture Project and Opportunity Lab, and served as Strategy Consultant for Public Equity Group, among other organizations. As a former National Institutes of Health Research Fellow, she studied local plants used to treat typhoid fever at the University of Ghana-Legon. Iquo is the founder of Crowdfund Your Dream, an online course and consultancy that helps diverse founders fund their businesses, by leaning in to their culture factor and the communities they serve. She holds a B.S. in biology from Stanford and MFA in film from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts.
Jennifer Dine
Membership
Director
Jennifer Dine
Membership Director
Jennifer runs our member-facing programs, including recruitment and engagement. Her career started in finance in the JPMorgan Global Treasury & Security Services Analyst Program in New York, and she ultimately served as Vice President in the Treasury Services Financial Institutions Sales Group, managing a portfolio of clients for the firm. Jennifer enjoys the personal connections that result from relationship and account management, particularly in her recent work in partnership development in the nonprofit sector, where she hopes to spend the remainder of her career. Jennifer holds a B.S. in Marketing from the Boston College Wallace E. Carroll School of Management and, for her avocation in natural health, completed the practitioner course track at The School of Health, UK.
Jordan Sheffield
Board
Treasurer
Jordan Sheffield
Board Treasurer
Ken Hunt
Board
Secretary
Ken Hunt
Board Secretary
Ken has spent the last 25 years building, growing, and managing businesses, in Board, C-level, and EVP roles in industries including agriculture, biotechnology, nutrition, software, and consumer packaged goods for organizations ranging from 5 to 250 people while overseeing P&L’s with up to $210M in revenue. Ken is currently the Principal and Founder of Fiber, Field, & Fork, a consultancy for companies in natural-fiber textiles, agriculture, and plant-based nutrition with corporate strategy, business development, marketing & sales, capital, and M & A needs. Ken holds a JD, an MBA, and a BA from Wake Forest University.
Nathanial Gronewold
Lead
Journalist
Nathanial Gronewold
Lead Journalist
Peter Kelly
President &
CEO
Peter Kelly
President and CEO
Prior to founding Grow Further, Peter was an assistant professor of economics at Renmin University in Beijing, where he taught and published on agriculture, international development, and the environment. He currently serves on the boards of a number of other charitable, policy, and for-profit organizations in addition to his full-time work at Grow Further, including as vice chair of Carbon Washington. He holds a PhD in Agricultural and Resource Economics from UC Berkeley; holds a BS in International Agricultural Development, with distinctions in agricultural science, from UC Davis; and has completed Global Washington’s Global Leadership Forum.
Learn more about his personal journey and the inspiration that led him to build Grow Further.
Rimple Nahata
Operations Coordinator
Rimple Nahata
Operations Coordinator
Rimple provides administrative and communications support and plans events. Previously, she managed accounts at several public relations firms in India, where her clients included major health care organizations, and after moving to the US served as a marketing and communications volunteer at Find Ventures and American Red Cross. She holds a BS in Electronic Communications and MA in Public Relations from MOP Vaishnav College and is currently studying nutrition part-time.
Susan Mathew
Partnership Development Consultant
Susan Mathew
Partnership Development Consultant
Suvasini Ramaswamy
Board
Member
Suvasini Ramaswamy
Board Member
William Cleary
Board
Member
William Cleary
Board Member
Alesha Black-Miller
Adviser
Alesha Black-Miller
Adviser
Alex McCalla
Adviser
Alex McCalla
Adviser
Brady Walkinshaw
Adviser
Brady Walkinshaw
Adviser
David Zilberman
Adviser
David Zilberman
Adviser
David is Robinson Chair Professor of agricultural and resource economics at UC Berkeley and a foremost scholar on agricultural innovation. He received the 2019 Wolf Prize in Agriculture, was elected to the National Academy of Sciences, and served as president of the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
He has produced 350 refereed journal articles, 20 edited books, and consulting reports for the World Bank and FAO. His research analyzes innovation supply chain and policy economics, emphasizing the interactions between agriculture, energy, and the environment. He holds a PhD from UC Berkeley.
Donald Summers
Adviser
Donald Summers
Adviser
Donald was involved in the development of our business plan and is continuing to provide incidental management consulting services to Grow Further, particularly around acquiring capital and talent. He is the founder of Altruist Partners, a consulting firm for growth-oriented nonprofits and social enterprises, and was formerly Director of Development at the University of Washington. He holds an Ed.M. in Leadership and Policy from Harvard University and a Bachelor’s in English from Middlebury College.