Wendy Ell offers three decades of marketing expertise coupled with government and industry relations and a long list of successful fundraising endeavors. Her three decades of work in energy and agriculture have impacted special interest groups in Alberta, Canada-wide and internationally.

By working with some of Canada’s most respected media and communications firms, Wendy has had the pleasure of working closely with individuals and organizations working up and down some of the most prized business sectors, leading and launching hundreds of consumer marketing, B2B and cause marketing programs. In the course of her work, she has orchestrated dozens of live and digital events, workshops, ad and PR campaigns, special reports, and webinars – all serving the needs of a wide array of special interest groups that in many cases have differing motivations, agendas and viewpoints.

She is a board member for Canada’s Women and Wealth organization, an advisor to Ag for Life, Regeneration Canada, Ten Peaks Innovation Alliance and volunteer for the Calgary Stampede and past advisor to the Clean Resource Innovation Network, the Petroleum Technology Alliance of Canada and organizing lead for Canada’s Energy Technology conference and Energy Supply Chain Conference, each pulling in over 900 attendees annually.

Jaymie Forrest leads Activ Technologies to help companies and their trading partners enable digital supply chains. With over 30 years of experience, Jaymie specializes in supply chain operations and logistics technologies in a variety of industries and applications.  

As CSCO, prior to Activ, she delivered the first high-speed produce handling conveyance with integrated cross-border operations, world-class food safety, and full case-level traceability. While serving as Managing Director of the Georgia Tech Supply Chain & Logistics Institute, she founded the Integrated Food Chain Research Center working with governments and industries to improve logistics performance and developing cold chain programs designed to reduce food waste. Also, founder of The Logistics Council for the Republic of Panama, and Logistics Innovation Centers in Singapore, China, Mexico, Costa Rica, Panama, and Brazil—all focused on operational strategies and logistics efficiencies. 

With over 30 years of worldwide Food/Agricultural and Supply Chain experience, traveling while delivering projects beneficial for the supplier and customers on 4 continents.  Dealing with both small and industrial size farms, government entities and sophisticated buyers in Europe, Russia and the United States, she has set up production lines across many commodities. Today she leads Agtools, a Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence award winner, a SaaS and enterprise firm that delivers global food & agricultural financial and market intelligence data. Agtools offers trusted official data from around the world to manage market volatility, increase profitability, and reduce the world’s food waste and CO2, and SO2 footprint.  Appointed to the Board of IFT (International Food Technologists), Department of Commerce Export Council and have served on the Board of the California Department of Food and Agriculture, Worldwide Advisory Board of Women for Walmart, Executive Board of United States Hispanic Chambers of Commerce and several additional boards.

Carolyn Gunkel is a litigator who represents and advises clients on critical legal and business issues. She represents businesses in product liability, agribusiness and toxic tort matters in state and federal courts. Carolyn is experienced in all aspects of litigation. 

Andrea Arias is a global leader in the realm of Predictive and Prescriptive Analytics within the field of agriculture. With a profound academic background, she holds a B.S. in Biotechnology from USFQ-Ecuador and earned her Ph.D. in Plant Breeding and Genetics from Iowa State University.

Over the course of her career, Andrea has dedicated five years to the development of automated high-throughput analytical pipelines and decision systems, with a particular focus on population development and variety/hybrid breeding spanning diverse crops and geographical regions. Her expertise led her to spearhead the strategy and portfolio of data science, automation engineering, and decision support tools for plant breeding and breeding operations at Corteva.

In the final two years of her tenure at Corteva, Andrea assumed the leadership for the global data science group within Research and Development. In 2022, she embarked on a new journey as the Vice President of Data Science and Crop Testing at Jord Bioscience, continuing to make invaluable contributions to the ever-evolving landscape of agricultural innovation.

In addition to her professional achievements, Andrea has been a passionate mentor to young scientists in graduate and early career stages. Her guidance and support have been instrumental in nurturing the next generation of talent in the field of agricultural analytics.

Joyce Hunter is a strategic-doer and a philanthropreneur. She was appointed by President Barack Obama to the position of Deputy Chief Information Officer for Policy and Planning at the Department of Agriculture (2013-2017) and was the Acting Chief Information Officer from March 2016 to July 2016. In addition to policy and technology planning, Ms. Hunter is the creator of the Data Science Agriculture, Athletic and Energy summer camps for underserved, underrepresented and underestimated youth, which is entering its 10thth year of operation. This unique learning experience provide young people 14 to 18 years old the opportunity to use creative thinking to develop story telling on critical policy issues using data. Ms. Hunter is currently the Executive Director of the Institute for Critical Infrastructure Technology (ICIT), a non-profit Think Tank, providing objective, nonpartisan research, advisory, and education to legislative, commercial, and public-sector cybersecurity, national security and critical infrastructure stakeholders. Ms. Hunter earned a BA from Villanova University and an MBA in Marketing from the University of Pennsylvania, Wharton

School of Business. Ms. Hunter is on the Dean’s Advisory Council for Villanova University, Bowie State University, and many industry advisory boards. She is also published in The Handbook of Federal Government Leadership and Administration: Transforming, Performing and Innovating in a Complex World (Routledge 2017) and the recent ICIT publication “Securing the Nation’s Critical Infrastructures: A Guide for the 2021 – 2025 Administration” (CRC Press 2022).