Planting millions of trees to feed billions of people
ABOUT US
Founded in 2010, Terviva is a food and ag innovation company partnering with farmers to grow pongamia, a climate-resilient tree which produces abundant, protein- and oil-rich legumes.
Pongamia is uniquely suited to meet today’s environmental challenges. It sequesters carbon, improves soil health and water quality while growing on land where other crops can’t grow. This helps to avoid deforestation and revitalize agricultural lands and communities around the world.
After more than a decade of innovation, we’ve developed a way to harvest and transform pongamia beans into healthy and delicious food ingredients called Ponova®. From tree to plate, our transparent and equitable supply chain spans wild harvesting, non-GMO beans in India to regenerative land stewardship in Hawaii, Florida and Australia.
We believe there’s a better way to feed the world’s growing population and that local impact can drive global change.
WE’RE HIRING!
We’re revolutionizing the markets for plant protein and oil with the pongamia tree. We value people who are smart, hard-working, trustworthy and passionate about our mission to plant millions of trees to feed billions of people. Central to the success of any company is its employees. At Terviva, you’ll collaborate around the world to cultivate the best ideas for people and the planet.
OUR TEAM
We bring together world-class leaders with unparalleled experience and a proven track record in agriculture, science, product development, intellectual property, finance and entrepreneurship.
Dr. Jim Astwood
Chief Technology Officer
Dr. Jim Astwood
Chief Technology Officer
Jim Astwood is inspired to bring socially and ecologically sustainable solutions to animal and human nutrition. He is excited about the pongamia bean’s untapped potential to fulfill unique needs in food, feed and value-added markets.
Jim is a Certified Food Scientist with more than 25 years of professional experience in agriculture, food and animal sciences. He was formerly VP of Scientific and Government Affairs at Martek (DSM) working in the infant nutrition, food and dietary supplement markets. As VP of Global Nutrition at ConAgra Brands he co-led the Health & Wellness Marketing program and established ConAgra’s Nutrition Institute. Jim was at Monsanto during the early years of the biotech seed revolution where he was responsible for food and feed safety and was also a Science Fellow. Jim has published 50 scientific papers and has been an active member of numerous professional organizations such as the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology, the Institute of Food Technologists and the American Society of Nutrition.
He earned his PhD in Agricultural & Food Science from the University of Manitoba, where he was a member of the university’s Board of Governors, and where he also earned an undergraduate degree in Genetics. Jim did post-doctoral research at Washington State University before joining Monsanto in 1994.
Jim is very proud of his three daughters and is an avid sailor and hockey player in Oakland, California.
Marc Diaz
Chief Commercialization Officer
Marc Diaz
Chief Commercialization Officer
Marc Diaz utilizes his expertise at scaling investment in people and nature to grow Terviva’s pongamia cultivation and production operations worldwide. He values Terviva’s ability to help farmers restore agricultural lands into productive sources of food and bioenergy in an innovative, sustainable and responsible way. As the company contributes to the world’s food and energy basket, Marc collaborates with Terviva’s supporters and stakeholders to ensure they achieve their social, environmental, and financial goals.
Prior to joining Terviva, Marc launched and led impact investing efforts through NatureVest at The Nature Conservancy, and the UNICEF Bridge Fund, where he served as Managing Director. He began his career and spent six years in management consulting at McKinsey & Company. Marc has served in volunteer board leadership roles in community development finance, theater, and The Episcopal Church. He is a 2017 Aspen Institute Finance Leaders Fellow and a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network.
Marc earned his MBA with distinction from Harvard Business School and holds an MPA from Harvard Kennedy School. He graduated cum laude with a BA in Government from Harvard College. In his free time, he enjoys running, hiking, and spending time with his family’s retired racing greyhound.
Ronald L. Edwards
Chairman, Board of Directors
Ronald L. Edwards
Chairman, Board of Directors
A highly effective manager and proactive leader, Ron Edwards has served as President and CEO of Evans Properties since 1987, guiding the family-owned agricultural and land management company in Vero Beach, expanding its cattle and citrus operations in eight Florida counties encompassing more than 41,000 acres. Ron has directed several highly successful entrepreneurial ventures, launching the South Beach Beverage Corporation (SOBE Brand) as founding and managing member. He was the founder and managing member of Blue Buffalo, LLC, a super-premium nationally distributed pet food company. Attuned to sustainability issues and the growing problem of nutrient pollution in water, Ron Edwards was named Chairman and CEO of AquaFiber Technologies Corporation which developed a patented process that cost effectively removes nutrients, bacteria, metals and toxicity from surface waters and industrial wastewater. Active in support of the citrus industry and education, he has served in numerous citrus industry organizations. A native Floridian, he is a graduate of the University of Florida and started his career as a CPA with Ernst and Ernst auditing agribusiness and beverage companies.
Dr. David Harry
Senior Vice President, Tree R&D
Dr. David Harry
Senior Vice President, Tree R&D
David’s breadth of experience encompasses both plants and animals and includes stints as a federal research scientist, university faculty and researcher, industry scientist, private consultant and USDA research advisor/manager. He is a former faculty member at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and Oregon State University, where he taught tree breeding and genetics. David earned an MS in forestry at UC Berkeley and then went on to do a PhD in genetics.
Maggie Kavalaris
Founder & Chief Legal Officer
Maggie Kavalaris
Founder & Chief Legal Officer
Maggie is a new venture attorney and serial entrepreneur, most recently as co-founder of PayMo (now Boku, publicly traded on the AIM Stock Exchange). As a corporate and intellectual property attorney for the past 20 years, she has worked on a variety of venture financings, mergers and acquisitions and public offerings. Maggie has practiced with Cooley Godward, Ware & Freidenrich and DLA, as well as Dentons, and at each firm she has held global executive management positions. Maggie received her J.D. from the University of San Francisco and her B.A. from the University of California Berkeley, where she was elected to membership in the Prytanean Honor Society and the Order of the Golden Bear. She is the Founding Chair of SheShouldRun and a Board Member of ASTIA, nonprofits dedicated to parity for women in politics and women entrepreneurs, respectively.
Ashley Kleckner
Senior Vice President, Food Sales and Marketing
Ashley Kleckner
Senior Vice President, Food Sales and Marketing
Ashley Kleckner is the senior vice president of sales and marketing at Terviva. She is excited to bring a new source of nutritious foods to market that support a healthier planet and provide farmers and smallholders with equitable incomes.
Before joining Terviva, Ashley was vice president of product and marketing at AppHarvest, an ag-tech company that builds and operates indoor farms and that uses natural resources to grow more, using less. Prior to that, Ashley was a leader on the inaugural go-to-market team at Impossible Foods, now valued at $7 billion. After bringing Impossible to market, she led national product rollouts as director of marketing, established sales teams and drove channel and sales strategies. Earlier in her career, Ashley was on the Global Product Management team at PayPal and did product and marketing consulting for The Culinary Edge and Ketchum Food. She earned her MBA from the University of California’s Haas School of Business.
Ashley is a mother of two and a lifelong nature-lover. She lives on California’s northern coast with her husband and children, where they keep bees and have a 108 pound hound dog that retired from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife and now hunts the food left behind by her children on the kitchen floor.
Manju Kohli
Senior Vice President, People Operations
Manju Kohli
Senior Vice President, People Operations
Manju is passionate about understanding what motivates people at work and what drives their purpose. She is keenly interested in contributing to the positive impact Terviva creates on climate, sustainability and the farming community.
With over 20 years of global HR experience in education, technology, digital media services, and consumer sectors, Manju has led teams across India, UK, USA and Singapore, with a key focus on strategy and transformation, culture and growth. Before joining Terviva, Manju has led people & culture teams at; UWC-SEA, Pearson Education, HT Digital Media, Carlsberg India, Oracle FS and ITC.
Beyond her professional engagements, along with her family, Manju has been actively supporting the development of young women and children from marginalised backgrounds through volunteering and fundraising for various non-profit organisations which are dedicated to their uplifting.
Manju is a relentless fitness enthusiast and an artist at heart. A mother of two accomplished children who also have a keen interest in the environment, sustainability and supporting communities. In her free time, she enjoys learning Indian classical music and spending time with their forever jumpy retriever.
Margaret Mackenzie
Chief Financial Officer
Margaret Mackenzie
Chief Financial Officer
Margaret Mackenzie is a veteran partnership builder who is adept at leveraging technology to advance real-world solutions. She is deeply interested in the hands-on work of growing TerViva’s multi-national business to combat systemic challenges including rising food insecurity, land scarcity and the threat climate change poses to our ability to feed and fuel the planet.
Margaret is an entrepreneur and former banker who has served in the C-Suite of several venture-backed financial technology startups and as co-founder of the multi-continent mobile payments company Paymo, now part of Boku, which is listed on the London Stock Exchange. She currently serves as a Global Advisory Board member of Astia, a non-profit dedicated to leveling the playing field for women entrepreneurs by providing access, community and capital.
She earned her MBA in Finance and International Business from the Booth School of Business at the University of Chicago, and a BA in International Relations from the University of California at Davis. Margaret is a life-long painter and in her spare time enjoys the opportunity to take in the orchards, cities and sweeping landscapes of Australia.
Kitt Payn
Vice President, Tree R&D
Kitt Payn
Vice President, Tree R&D
Kitt is the Vice President of Tree R&D operations. His key focus is on pongamia cultivar yield enhancement achieved through breeding and science-driven horticultural practices. Kitt has a PhD in Forest Genetics from North Carolina State University. He has over 15 years experience involving the genetic improvement and commercialization of tree species. During this time, Kitt served as the Tree Improvement Technology Program Leader at Mondi, a global packaging and paper company. Thereafter, he was Director of the Cooperative Tree Improvement Program at NC State University, serving 40 member organizations ranging from vertically integrated forest products companies, state agencies, tree nurseries, and biotech companies. Kitt enjoys fishing and hiking, and spending time with his family on Florida’s beautiful beaches.
Sudhir Rani
Co-Founder & Chief Development Officer
Sudhir Rani
Co-Founder & Chief Development Officer
Sudhir brings extensive financing and structuring experience to Terviva. Before joining Terviva in 2011, Sudhir was a Director in the Private Equity group at D.E. Shaw & Co. in New Delhi, India where he structured, negotiated and conducted due diligence on growth capital investments. Prior to that, he spent eight years at UBS in Asset Management and Investment Banking. Sudhir has an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and a BS in Industrial Engineering and Operations Research from Columbia University.
Naveen Sikka
Founder & CEO
Naveen Sikka
Founder & CEO
Naveen Sikka is the founder and CEO of Terviva, a food and agriculture technology company that is building the world’s most sustainable supply chain of plant protein and vegetable oil.
Under his leadership, Terviva has unlocked pongamia’s potential as a climate-friendly, nutritional powerhouse for feeding the world’s rising population. Terviva is the first company to develop high-yielding, non-GMO cultivars of pongamia and to create edible protein and oil from its beans to feed people. Product partners draw on Terviva’s plant protein and vegetable oil supply chain that is world class in its low-carbon intensity, traceability and cost competitiveness with existing oilseed supplies.
Naveen and Terviva have been featured in the Wall Street Journal, The Economist, Forbes, Food Navigator, Growing Produce, All About Feed, Food Business News and Pacific Business News, among other leading publications covering sustainable innovation and technology in agriculture and food. Naveen completed his MBA from UC Berkeley where he co-chaired the development of the Berkeley Energy and Resources Collaborative (BERC) in collaboration with Lawrence Berkeley Lab to evaluate its existing portfolio of commercial technologies. Prior to earning his MBA, Naveen worked as a management consultant at Gemini Consulting and TPI. He graduated as a Class Senior Marshal with a BA from Columbia University, during which time he studied and worked in France and West Africa. He also serves on the Board of Directors of Elemental Excelerator, an organization with nearly $50m deployed in over 130 portfolio companies in climate tech, with a focus on frontline communities.
Simmarpal Singh
Chief Operating Officer
Simmarpal Singh
Chief Financial Officer
Simmarpal Singh is a seasoned commodities executive with over 20 years of experience in building and scaling agricultural businesses across the globe. As Chief Operating Officer at Terviva, Simmarpal leads the company’s efforts to expand the production and processing of pongamia, a sustainable and versatile tree crop, with a focus on India, the U.S., and Australia.
Prior to joining Terviva, Simmarpal served as CEO-India for COFCO International, where he revitalized the company’s oils and grains businesses. He also held leadership positions at Louis Dreyfus India and Olam International, where he developed a vertically integrated peanuts and dry beans operation in Argentina. Simmarpal’s extensive experience spans across African, Latin American, and Asian markets, giving him a unique global perspective on agricultural value chains.
Simmarpal is passionate about leveraging his expertise to drive sustainable agriculture and contribute to a healthier planet. He sees immense potential in pongamia to transform the food, feed, and fuel industries while mitigating climate change.
Katlin Smith
Board of Directors
Katlin Smith
Board of Directors
Katlin Smith is the Founder and CEO of Simple Mills, a company at the forefront of a clean food movement that is shaping the next generation of natural foods and changing the way America eats. She created Simple Mills after cleaning up her own diet and realized the tremendous power food has to transform how people feel. In just eight years after launch, the company has quickly become the largest natural baking mix brand, cracker brand, and cookie brand; distributed in more than 25,000 stores ranging from Whole Foods to Walmart, Costco, Kroger, Publix, Safeway and Target; and a driving force in transforming the center aisles of the grocery store.
Founded in 2013, Simple Mills now offers more than 40 baking mixes, crackers, cookies and bars that are made with clean, nutrient-dense ingredients – nothing artificial, ever. The products feature whole-food ingredients like nutrient-dense almond flour, sunflower seeds, chestnut flour, and buckwheat that make healthy eating deliciously simple with a taste that is on par or better than familiar favorites. The company has over 100 employees, is headquartered in Chicago, IL, with innovation offices in Mill Valley, CA.
Katlin is passionate about positively impacting the holistic health of the planet and its people by pioneering the way the world eats, bringing others into the movement, and being a positive force on every part of the ecosystem. Helping consumers transform how they feel by empowering them to choose nutritious options made with real, recognizable ingredients has always been a cornerstone of the Simple Mills mission. Most recently, the brand has evolved its mission to include planetary health. Early initiatives focus on realizing impact through principles of regenerative agriculture; the company is focused on diversifying the crops people consume away from sugar, wheat, corn, and soy (that make up more than half of farmland), forming partnerships with farmers throughout their supply chain and providing them with incentives, education resources, and financial assistance to implement regenerative practices.
Katlin, a former Deloitte Consulting management consultant, has been widely recognized for these achievements, including being honored with Forbes 30 Under 30, Inc. 30 Under 30 and Progressive Grocer’s Top Woman in Grocery awards. She has been featured on NPR’s How I Built This, Good Morning America, and The Today Show.
Katlin is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill – Kenan-Flagler Business School with majors in Business Administration and Biology. She also attended the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business and is certified in Permaculture Design. She currently lives in Greenbrae, CA with her husband, Brad, and their dog, Berkeley. She loves to garden, cook, experiment with new ingredients in her CSA box, travel, and advise other women entrepreneurs.