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Varun Deshpande is the Managing Director for India at the Good Food Institute (GFI), where he is focused on building the future of food by working with scientists, foundations, governments, entrepreneurs, and corporations to advance the plant-based and cell-based meats sector. As the son of a cancer surgeon from Mumbai, Varun has been deeply immersed in the healthcare sector from a very young age. He spent several formative years studying Chemical and Biomedical Engineering at world-class technology hub Carnegie Mellon University in the United States. He then went on to work at the Jewish Healthcare Foundation in Pittsburgh on implementing digital health, helping vulnerable populations through care coordination, and a systems approach to healthcare.

While in the United States, Varun learned a great deal about Effective Altruism, a philosophy which seeks to investigate and target the world’s most pressing problems. He came to understand the impact of industrial animal agriculture on the world, and the imperative need to transition away from it using markets and technology. In dedicating his work to the future of protein and combining his duty to human and planetary health, Varun aims to help build a more healthy, sustainable, and just global food system, starting right here in India

Gary is the Editor-in-Chief of William Reed Business Media titles FoodNavigator-Asia and NutraIngredients-Asia.  A journalist and editor for the past 12 years, Gary started his career as a newspaper journalist in UK, where he we went on to edit several regional titles and write for a number of national dailies. He first joined William Reed in 2011 as Editor of Food Ingredients, Health and Nutrition, and Associate Editor of Food Manufacture.  After two years, Gary moved on to take over the editorship of global travel-retail business titles Duty Free News International and Travel Retailer International,  before moving to Asia to lead the region-wide editorial teams for communications and advertising business publications PRWeek Asia and Campaign Asia-Pacific.  He re-joined William Reed in August 2016 to open the company’s first Asia office in Singapore and manage the expansion of its food and nutrition coverage across the region.

Dr Sandhya Sriram is the CEO and co-founder of Shiok Meats Pte. Ltd., Singapore. Sandhya is a stem cell scientist with over 10 years of experience. After graduating with a PhD from Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, Sandhya pursued her postdoc at A*STAR in Singapore. Following 4 years of postdoctoral work, she took up business development at a research institute. Alongside, she co-founded 2 companies, Biotech In Asia and SciGlo. Sandhya has been featured on Forbes Women in Tech for her entrepreneurial ventures and is an author for Nature Biotechnology blog. Currently her company, Shiok Meats, is employing cellular agriculture by growing sustainable seafood and meat using stem cells instead of animals; their first product being Shiok Shrimp.

A communications professional by training, Pamela is currently a consultant with the Omnicom PR Group Singapore. She has been managing corporate reputation and growing brand resonance in the Asia Pacific region over the past 16 years and was formerly the General Manager of Marketing and Communications for low-fare airline HK Express, and previously the Head of Communications & Guest Relations at Scoot, the low-cost carrier subsidiary of SIA Group. Pamela has been leading media efforts in Singapore for Grant Thornton’s Women in Business initiative over the past two years. Pamela also founded a packaged Chinese soup venture, Freshen Food, in her entrepreneurship journey.

Wealth manager turned entrepreneur and digitalisation evangelist, Keith Tan’s passion for good coffee and technology kicked off Crown Coffee’s meteoric journey in 2016. Keith quickly recognised that his humble start-up faced labour shortages, high rental and shrinking margins that could be ameliorated by adopting industry-disrupting technology. Crown Coffee thus evolved into a smart café and IoT (Internet of Things), where technology and customers interface seamlessly for quality coffee and an amazing experience.

Leveraging on key strengths in customer experience with a new focus into automation, Keith has put himself in a position to become an IoT (Internet of Things) and digitalisation evangelist. Keith’s mission is to digitalise and empower traditional businesses through the use of technology and robotics, while putting a great cup of coffee in every hand, perfectly and easily.

Caleb is the Chief Operating Officer of Zeemart, an online procurement platform for F&B businesses. Zeemart seamlessly allows buyers and suppliers to buy and transact, helping them to make smarter purchasing decisions. Caleb has more than 15 years of business experience. He specialises in helping companies to grow and scale through high-level strategic thinking, benchmarking, and the identification of challenges, opportunities and future capabilities required to achieve sustainable growth and market leadership. Before joining Zeemart, Caleb was EY Singapore’s SME Business Development Leader, specialising in serving clients from the middle market, including start-ups, SMEs, family businesses and local listed companies.

Christian Cadeo is currently the Managing Partner, Asia for Big Idea Ventures. Big Idea Ventures is a new alternative protein venture capital fund/accelerator based in New York and Singapore. It is anchored by investments from Temasek Holdings and Tyson Food (NYSE: TSN/Fortune 100 company).

Prior to this Christian was a seasoned operator with experience in bringing US based startups to Asia. His first startup was at AdMob which was eventually acquired by Google for US$750MM. The second startup was JUST which has raised US$372MM from Founders Fund, Horizon Ventures and Eduardo Saverin. There he was the 1st employee in Asia-Pacific as well as the first on the ground person out of the three alternative protein Unicorns (JUST, Impossible Foods, Beyond Meat). Recently he was at Domo where he joined pre-IPO as the 1st employee in Southeast Asia. Domo had raised close to US$700MM from investors such as Benchmark, Jeff Bezo and TPG. The company IPO on NASDAQ in 2018.

Christian also has extensive experience working at some of the largest technology companies in the world. He spent four years at Google managing the mobile and enterprise division in Southeast Asia. Earlier in his career he worked at Microsoft managing commercial development within the online division.

John is the Director of Makana Ventures, a Singapore-based collective whose mission is to create a more sustainable Agri-Food system through advocacy, investment, and ecosystem support. Prior to starting Makana Ventures, John worked for 12 years in investment banking at Morgan Stanley and previously Deutsche Bank. His investments in the Agri-Food space focus on companies seeking to innovate and rethink the ways society interacts with food, from first production to final consumption. Portfolio companies include abillionveg, GrowFlux, and Shiok Meats.

John grew up in Hawaii, is a graduate of Cornell University and lives in Singapore with his wife and three children.

Jonathan joined Edelman in 2005 and is the European Managing Director and Global Vice Chair of the Technology Practice.

Jonathan has over 15 years of AR, PR and corporate communications experience, specialising in international campaigns in the technology, media and telecoms sectors. He previously set up te analyst relations practice at Burson-Marsteller and led AR accounts for SAP and Intel. He has run international public relations strategies, brand positioning projects and media implementation for companies across the US, Europe and Asia, such as Hewlett Packard, Orange, Motorola and Microsoft. Before joining Weber Shandwick in Feb 2002, Jonathan was Managing Director of Burson-Marsteller’s Marketing and Technology Practice. A role which included business and knowledge development responsibility for the European technology.

Caleb is the Chief Operating Officer of Zeemart, an online procurement platform for F&B businesses. Zeemart seamlessly allows buyers and suppliers to buy and transact, helping them to make smarter purchasing decisions. Caleb has more than 15 years of business experience. He specialises in helping companies to grow and scale through high-level strategic thinking, benchmarking, and the identification of challenges, opportunities and future capabilities required to achieve sustainable growth and market leadership. Before joining Zeemart, Caleb was EY Singapore’s SME Business Development Leader, specialising in serving clients from the middle market, including start-ups, SMEs, family businesses and local listed companies.

Nigel is currently with Rainmaking Innovation’s corporate innovation practice in Singapore, where he focuses on helping corporates unlock concrete, commercial value in innovation beyond buzzwords. Prior to this role, Nigel spent 5 years with the Singapore Economic Development Board managing the republic’s foreign direct investments in sectors such as chemicals, bio-industrials and agri-food tech. Nigel was also concurrently part of the Board’s pioneering internal innovation team as a practitioner and trainer of the lean startup methodology.

Nigel’s passion for the agri-food industry began in 2012 when he was part of an SME building a cloud-based business intelligence tool for the palm oil industry to manage their trading and hedging operations. Back then, the words “agritech” and “startup” were not common parlance but this first foray opened his eyes to the opportunity – and incredible challenge – we have to create a new food system that is both equitable and sustainable.

Nigel lives in Singapore with his wife and toddler who is daily finding new furniture to climb.

Ranjani is an MBA professional, closely committed to a solutions based approach with over 17 years of International account management experience in the areas of Banking and Consulting.

Ranjani has rejoined CPA-Partnership (then PKF) as a Director and Chief Operations Officer since January 2016 and leads the Partnership and Business Development efforts across the various verticals the firm operates in and plays an integral role in heading a global team in developing and maintaining senior level partnerships across a diverse range of industries. In this capacity, she works in connecting Singapore to the world as well as provide advisory services and feasibility studies in her areas of expertise in Banking, Financial Crime, HR and Government related licensing and grants.

Ranjani also holds the post of Vice Chairperson, Singapore on behalf of the International Trade Council, where she works to promote cross border trade between corporates around the world.  Ranjani sits on the board of well reputed companies as well being on the approved list of directors to be on the board of Financial Institutions with the Monetary Authority of Singapore.