Team Category: Members

Heidi is the Global Community Investment Leader and Foundation President for Corteva Agriscience. She is responsible for corporate giving in Indiana and Iowa and leads donations and community outreach for United States and international giving programs and projects. Heidi also oversees Corteva’s disaster response relief and employee volunteer engagement.

Heidi started her career at Dow AgroSciences in 1996 in the Law Department and in 2001 moved to the Government and Public Affairs Department. During her time in Public Affairs at Dow AgroSciences, Heidi worked on a variety of internal and external roles, media relations, corporate brand, managed tours of the global headquarters, along with leading corporate citizenship efforts and community outreach globally.

Heidi is a graduate of the 19th class of the Indiana Agricultural Leadership Program. She’s currently a board member for the Indiana 4-H Foundation, National FFA Foundation Board of Trustees and the Global Child Nutrition Foundation. Heidi was a volunteer at the NFL Experience during Super Bowl XLVI held in Indianapolis, Indiana. She currently volunteers with organizations aimed to address food insecurity, 4-H, and Indiana Sports Corp. She received a Bachelor of Science degree in Public Relations from Ball State University. Heidi is a former 10 year 4-H member, Boy Scout volunteer, and Girl Scout leader. She hails from a family farm in Poseyville, Indiana, U.S.A.

Susan is President and CEO of the American Council of Life Insurers (ACLI), whose mission is to help families live better lives by creating more certainty now and in the future. ACLI’s 275 member companies represent 93 percent of industry assets and provide financial security products and services to 90 million families.

In her role, Neely has forged groundbreaking initiatives and partnerships on paid leave and retirement security policy. Key examples include passage of the SECURE Act in 2019 and SECURE 2.0 in 2022. ACLI has advanced our commitment to closing coverage gaps. Under Neely’s leadership, ACLI has invested in initiatives that make an impact, like the ACLI Capital Challenge, which supports financial education for kids across the nation.

Neely is widely recognized as one of the most influential people in association leadership. She is a two-time trade association CEO of the year, one of Washingtonian’s “most influential people” and “100 Most Powerful Women in Washington.”

A native of Iowa, Neely holds an undergraduate degree from the University of Iowa and a master’s degree from Drake University. She is the mother of two adult children, Eve and Ben.

Tina currently serves as the Chief of Staff and VP of Rural Services for Land O’Lakes, Inc. Prior to joining Land O’Lakes, Tina was an international grain trader, a Silicon Valley executive, Chief of Staff to the Deputy Secretary of Agriculture at USDA, Legislative Director at USDA, and senior policy staff for the U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture during the writing, negotiation, and passage of both the 2008 and 2014 Farm Bills.

She earned her bachelor’s degree from the University of Minnesota and master’s degree from the University of London. Tina serves on the board of The Good Acre, The Global Child Nutrition Foundation, and founded a non-profit in her rural hometown that fundraises and invests in community led development. Tina hails from a family farm in rural Iowa and resides in the Midwest with her husband and three young sons.

Emily is a climate and social impact intrapreneur. She currently oversees a number of special projects focused on sustainable internal operations for Google in 56 countries. This includes efforts such as establishing Google’s public global food waste goals and driving various efforts to decarbonize Google’s global real estate portfolio.

Prior, Emily oversaw Google’s cross-functional food security efforts building on her technical work on food systems started at X, Alphabet’s moonshot factory. She activated Google’s philanthropic arm, initiated partnerships with the food and ag industry, and drove industry change by increasing data openness to reduce food waste and food insecurity. At Google, Emily has also worked on a wide range of breakthrough technologies including Loon internet balloons and Glass smart glasses.

Emily started her career as a mechanical engineer at IDEO, a global design and innovation consultancy, during which she came to embrace the equal importance of human-centered design, engineering and business. With this, she returned to Stanford University to pursue her MBA and continues to actively teach entrepreneurship classes at the Stanford School of Engineering, hosting guests such as Sam Altman (OpenAI) and Daniela Amodei (Anthropic) in her classes. She is the holder of seven patents spanning medical devices to consumer electronics.

Cindy Long is a longtime advocate for school meals. She served as USDA Deputy Undersecretary for Food, Nutrition and Consumer Services, and as Administrator of USDA Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) from 2021-2024. Prior to that Ms. Long had served in multiple USDA roles encompassing all aspects of child nutrition programs, including the National School Lunch Program, School Breakfast Program, Child and Adult Care Food Program, Summer Food Service Program, and the Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program. Her accomplishments include leading multiple major improvements in the nutritional quality of school meals; implementing new national programs providing universal healthy school meals for all; and a new national summer feeding program, the first new national nutrition entitlement in fifty years. She has also been a strong advocate for local and regional food systems, leading USDA’s farm to school agenda and championing unprecedented funding levels for local food in domestic nutrition programs during the Biden Administration.

Ms. Long also has extensive operational support experience, including leadership of USDA dregional offices and research and analysis initiatives in support of domestic nutrition assistance programs. She has extensive experience in budget and appropriations issues, including several years with the Office of Management and Budget. She also has experience in the private and nonprofit sectors.

Ms. Long has a MPA in public policy and economics from Princeton University’s School of Public and International Affairs, and a BA in economics from the University of Notre Dame. She has received numerous recognitions and awards, including the Presidential Rank Award and multiple USDA Honor Awards.

David is a Senior Advisor at Kyle House Group and brings over a decade of advocacy and government relations experience on foreign assistance, agricultural development and global food security, agricultural research, and global nutrition.

David previously led government affairs as Senior Vice President at Farm Journal Foundation, an education and advocacy organization focused on putting the best ideas from U.S. agriculture to work to solve some of the world’s greatest challenges, including global hunger and malnutrition. In this role, he worked closely with members of Congress, their staff, and administration officials to prioritize funding for global food security, nutrition, and domestic and international agricultural research. Prior to joining Farm Journal Foundation, he served as a foreign affairs fellow for the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health for Congresswoman Karen Bass (D-CA). In this role he covered economic development and trade issues in Africa, foreign assistance, global health, food security, and a range of domestic policy issues.

From 2014 to 2018, David led global policy for One Acre Fund – an agricultural social enterprise that delivers modern seed, fertilizer, agronomic training, and distribution to over 1.5 million smallholder farmers in East and Southern Africa. He engaged with a wide network of bilateral aid agencies, multilateral donors, and national governments in the U.S., Europe, and Africa. Prior to One Acre Fund, he managed agriculture policy issues at The One Campaign, an advocacy organization co-founded by Bono, and was based in Washington, DC and Johannesburg, South Africa.

David holds a master’s degree in international development and policy analysis from New York University and a bachelor’s degree in business administration and economics from the University of Delaware. He resides in Gaithersburg, Maryland with his wife, Caitlin, and their daughter.

Krysta is the president and CEO of the U.S. Dairy Export Council (USDEC). In her role, she brings experience with agriculture, sustainability, and food policy to help promote dairy exports and enrich the well-being of people, communities, and the planet. Harden directs a staff of trade specialists, policy professionals, marketers, and strategists, and oversees eight international offices working to facilitate dairy product knowledge, identify opportunities, monitor regulatory activity, and improve the business climate for U.S. dairy.

Previously, Harden served dual roles as USDEC’s chief operating officer and Dairy Management Inc.’s EVP of global environmental strategy. Before joining DMI, Harden served as chief sustainability officer with Corteva and DuPont. Harden also spent seven years working with Secretary Tom Vilsack at USDA, nearly three of those years as deputy secretary, where Harden helped shape agriculture policy and led implementation of the 2014 Farm Bill.

Michele is the Chief Commercial Officer for Elo Life Systems, a next generation plant-based ingredients company. She brings nearly 30 years of diverse experience across food and consumer goods, including infant formula, weight management, sports nutrition, medical foods and dietary supplements.

Michele has deep, proven experience heading global strategy, planning, operations and P&L responsibility for multi-billion-dollar portfolios. Formerly President of Dairy and Culinary with Kerry Ingredient and Flavors, she has held leadership roles at a number of companies, including DuPont, Solae and Nestle. Michele was the founding CEO at Cadena BioSciences, a start-up focused on gut microbiomes.

Valerie is the Deputy Director, Global Development at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF). In her current role, she manages the foundation’s investments that support communities affected by natural disasters and complex emergencies.

Within the BMGF, Dr. Nkamgang Bemo pioneered and executed the Emergency Strategy to respond to all major world disasters, including the Haiti Earthquake in 2010, the Ebola Breakout in 2014, and the Nepal Earthquake in 2015. Additionally, Dr. Nkamgang Bemo designed and implemented a critical strategy for Agriculture Development in West Africa, with a focus on Nigeria. She holds over 20 years of direct experience in the field worldwide and is passionate about building local capacity within communities and national institutions, fostering innovative solutions and sustainable growth that results in lasting change.

Before joining the BMGF, Dr. Nkamgang-Bemo held various roles at the International Rescue Committee, most recently serving as Senior Technical Advisor for health in the Democratic Republic of Congo and West Africa. She has experience with a wide variety of NGOs internationally with extensive experience in Emergency Relief, as well as Clinical and Public health. Regarding education, Dr. Nkamgang Bemo received her MD from the University of Cote d’Ivoire, an Epidemiology Diploma at the University of Paris, and her MPH from Madrid Autonoma University.