Best Startup
At Best Startup UK we track over 130,000 UK startups and over 500,000 people who hold key positions in these companies. We use this directory of startups to highlight top employees, founders and board members we think deserve more appreciation than they are currently getting.
This list showcases the top United Kingdom based CEO’ operating in the Farming space. If you think a CEO’ is missing from this list, feel free to contact our editor on editor@beststartup.co.uk.
The individuals on this list have been included because of exceptional performance in one of the following categories:
- Innovation – Operating as a key part in an extremely innovative business or startup.
- Growth – Operating as a key figure in the growth and upscale of a market leading business or startup.
- Management – Showing exceptional management skills.
- Societal impact – Putting their business on the map for their positive societal or environmental impact.
Our Data – We source our data from OSINT (open source intelligence) and public directories such as Companies House UK, Crunchbase, SemRush and many more. The data from these sources should be treated with a degree of caution and verified yourself.
Kenny Ewan
CEO & Founder of Wefarm
Kenny Ewan is originally from Scotland and he studied architecture at Dundee University, before moving to Peru to work for an international NGO for seven years. While he was in Peru he worked closely with local farmers and indigenous communities on sustainable agriculture projects,where he learned about the power of grassroots innovation. After his time in Peru he joined Cafedirect Producers Foundation, an independent UK charity that works with a network of more than 280,000 smallholder farmers. As part of their start-up team he led the development of WeFarm from 2010 to 2014, before launching it as an independent social enterprise in 2015. WeFarm connects smallholder farmers in Africa and Latin America to vital information on agriculture via SMS. Farmers can ask questions on farming and receive crowdsourced answers from farmers around the world on even the most basic mobile phone, without having internet access or leaving their farm. In November 2015 we have 32,000 farmers using our system.
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About Wefarm: Wefarm is a farmer-to-farmer digital network that enables users to share information via SMS.
Ben Scott-Robinson
Co-Founder and CEO of The Small Robot Company
Ben is the founder of The Small Robot Company. We have a mission to help farmers feed the world while regenerating the planet. We call this the Fourth Agricultural Revolution. Our service of robots, are called Tom Dick and Harry, and the brains of the operation, Wilma. Previously he ran Ordnance Survey’s internal agency creating beautiful products and campaigns with the world’s best maps. Before that, Ben started many startups, and worked as Creative and Experience Director at Top 10 digital agencies such as Digitas and Sapient.
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About The Small Robot Company: The Small Robot Company is delivering per plant farming for the world’s largest crops.
Matija Zulj
Founder and Chief Executive Officer of AGRIVI
Matija is the founder and CEO of Agrivi. Matija believes that if we provide knowledge and technology to all food producers, we can provide enough food for everyone and keep agriculture sustainable. He holds an MSc in computer science and an MBA. Agrivi is an agri-tech startup that is creating the global agricultural eco-system with vision to change the way food is produced. With an intelligent cloud farm management solution, we help farmers to increase their productivity and find buyers for produced food. Agrivi is the winner of World Startup Competition 2014
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About AGRIVI: AGRIVI is a global agritech company with the market leading farm management software
Zac Gazit
Founder, CEO & Managing Director of ALVATECH
Zac Gazit is the founder, CEO & Managing Director of ALVATECH & he attended The College of Management Academic Studies in 1997.
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About ALVATECH: ALVATECH develops water treatment solutions and technology for effective farming productivity.
Bill Thompson
CEO of Redag Crop Protection
Bill has extensive experience of biology-based businesses at corporate, SME and start-up level. He has been Global Business Director for one of the major agrochemical companies, Managing Director and owner of a CRO, and COO of start-up Plant Impact, as well as consulting to Private Equity/Venture Capitalist-backed companies in the biology sector.
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About Redag Crop Protection: The engine of discovery for the agrochemical industry.
Jamie McInnes
Chief Executive Officer of Hectare Agritech
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About Hectare Agritech: Hectare is an agritech company focused on exploiting current inefficiencies and deficiencies in the farming industry supply chains.
Anders Gundersen
CEO & Founder of Sensonomic
Anders has experience from C-level strategy consulting, academia and the finance industry. He has been project lead on multiple projects in Scandinavia, UK and East Africa. Realising that land management issues are inherently complex, and that decisions affecting people, nature and businesses are often made with too little information, he founded Sensonomic to provide better data for decision making and risk management. Anders holds an MBA from the University of Oxford and an MPhil in Economics from the University of Bergen.
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About Sensonomic: Sensonomic creates computer simulations of agricultural systems to optimise yield, improve operations and increase resilience.
Jenny Costa
Founder/ CEO of Rubies in the Rubble
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About Rubies in the Rubble: Rubies in the Rubble is a sustainable food brand, making high quality relishes and jams out of surplus supplies.
Peter Blezard
Chief Executive Officer of Azotic Technologies
Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts Founder and Former CEO of Plant Impact Plc Strategic focus on sustainable agriculture Highly experienced in pioneering products into new markets Extensive background of working with major companies on a globalbasis at board level Responsible for commercial issues, business development and sales
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About Azotic Technologies: Develop and commercialise a natural nitrogen technology that provides a sustainable solution to fertiliser overuse.
Joe Farren
Chief Executive Officer of British Wool
Joe graduated in Modern Languages and English from Oxford University before qualifying as a barrister. Following four years working in corporate finance in London with KPMG and Robert Fleming, he moved to Leeds where he worked for both Arthur Andersen and Ernst & Young Corporate Finance. In 2004, he joined the Corporate Development Team of SIG plc, the FTSE 250 building products supplier, and from 2008 to 2013, was SIG’s Head of UK Corporate Development. His SIG experience included M&A, strategic planning and major business development initiatives. Joe joined LDC in 2013.
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About British Wool, Ernst & Young: British Wool is a non-profit making organisation, returning to producers the market price for their wool.
Minshad Ansari
Founder and CEO of Bionema
Minshad is founder and Managing Director of Bionema Ltd and has over 20 years in bio-pesticide development with a proven track record of delivering of IPM strategy in agricultural, horticultural and forestry sectors. He has more than 70 research publications and is a regular invited speaker at biopesticide conferences. He has extensive experience in strategic R&D planning, operational management, business and technology development. Minshad completed his PhD at Ghent University, Belgium and is a qualified BASIS advisor in Crop Protection (Commercial Horticulture). He is responsible for strategic and operational management of the company.
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About Bionema: Bionema creates chemical-free pest management solutions for horticulture, turf & landscape, & forestry sectors.
Rui Andres
Chief Executive Officer of Fieldwork Robotics
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About Fieldwork Robotics: Fieldwork Robotics is developing and commercializing soft, selective, and autonomous harvesting robots.
Maryna Kuzmenko
CEO of Petiole
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About Petiole: Petiole is global platform for plant phenotyping with smartphone
Nigel Douglas
CEO of BATCAM Agri
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About BATCAM Agri: BATCAM Agri specialises in providing drone surveys for agronomists, farmers and growers.
Jill Hewitt
CEO of National Association of Agricultural Contractors
Jill Hewitt is thew CEO at The NAAC.
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About National Association of Agricultural Contractors: National Association of Agricultural Contractors represents and supports the interests of land-based contractors.
Jill Hewitt
CEO of National Association of Agricultural Contractors
Jill Hewitt is thew CEO at The NAAC.
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About National Association of Agricultural Contractors: National Association of Agricultural Contractors represents and supports the interests of land-based contractors.
