Sarah Nolet
Partner & CEO
Sarah Nolet is an internationally recognized food systems innovation expert, the CEO and Founder of AgThentic, a global food and agriculture strategy firm, and co-founder of Tenacious Ventures, Australia’s first dedicated agrifood tech VC firm. Sarah has been instrumental in building the early stage agtech ecosystem in Australia - from advising dozens of startups, designing accelerator programs and consulting to established agribusinesses, to helping industry, universities and government develop and implement forward-looking initiatives in food system innovation. She is also the host of the AgTech...So What? podcast, and co-founder of Farmers2Founders, a national innovation program for primary producers.
Matthew Pryor
Partner
Matthew Pryor, who grew up in country Victoria, is recognized for his expertise in building and scaling agricultural technology businesses, from early prototyping, to capital raising, to exit through trade sale. Matthew was the co-founder and Chief Technology Officer of Observant, established in 2003 to use technology to manage scarce agricultural water in drought-hardened north Western Australia. Observant expanded to provide irrigation solutions for all types of farming operations throughout Australia and globally, leading to its acquisition by Jain Irrigation. Matthew is also on the board of Rocket Seeder, a not-for-profit, member-based organisation committed to supporting food and agriculture entrepreneurs.
Komal Patel
Principal Advisor
Komal Patel is an experienced strategy advisor with a focus on driving sustainable and inclusive growth for businesses and society. With a background in strategy consulting and global development, Komal has worked at the intersection of the private, public, and philanthropic sectors and specialises in bringing new programmes and products to market.
She brings global experience, having worked in the US, UK, India, and Australia on topics including food and agriculture, health and nutrition, and climate.
Komal holds a Masters in Business Administration (with a specialisation in Sustainability) from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Sloan School of Management and a Bachelors in Public Policy from Duke University.
Georgia Pugh
Georgia Pugh is an experienced commercial agribusiness professional. She is passionate about food and agriculture, bringing a strong background and deep understanding of operations and key performance drivers across all levels of the sector. She specializes in providing commercial and strategic business support, leadership, research and analysis to optimize business performance.
Georgia grew up on, and continues to have an active interest in, her family’s mixed cropping and livestock farm in southwest Western Australia. She has also worked as a senior commercial analyst at a large international food processing and logistics agribusiness and as a specialist AgTech R&D incentives consultant at PwC.
Georgia holds a Bachelor degree in Agricultural Science (with First Class Honours) and a Bachelor of Commerce with majors in accounting, entrepreneurship and innovation at the University of Western Australia.
@georgiapugh21
Vela Georgiev
COO & Operating Partner
An engineer and experienced operations leader, Vela has a strong track record of supporting global businesses to achieve scalable operations. Her portfolio of responsibility has encompassed manufacturing, engineering, supply chain, operations and logistics, quality and risk management.
Vela brings extensive experience in agtech, having worked with several agtech companies to scale their operations and manufacturing across a range of hardware and software products.
With a passion for enabling entrepreneurs to scale, Vela is an active member of the Australian startup ecosystem, with a focus leading initiatives to support hardware innovators.
Vela holds a Masters of Engineering, Bachelor of Electronic Engineering (with honours) and Bachelor of Computer Science. She is also a certified Lean Practitioner and has earned a diploma of Project Management.
Kirsten Diprose
Marketing Manager
Kirsten is a communications specialist, content-creator and farmer, based in rural Victoria. She has worked as a TV and radio journalist for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) in Sydney, Melbourne and regional Victoria. Her journalism has won multiple awards and she continues to have a passion for telling the stories of agricultural innovation and rural life.
Kirsten has also been a media studies lecturer at Deakin University and continues to mentor cadet journalists across rural Australia as part of the Country Press Association/Deakin University program. Kirsten also still appears occasionally as a presenter for the ABC on TV and radio.
Whilst she grew up in Sydney, Kirsten moved to a mixed grazing and cropping farm in South-West Victoria in 2013, where she lives with her husband and two sons. They have also recently incorporated a dairy into their farming business.
Kirsten holds a Bachelor of Media and Communications from the University of Sydney and an Honours degree (First Class) in journalism from Deakin University. Her further research includes how agriculture is framed in the mainstream media.
@KirstenDiprose
Collaborators
At AgThentic, we bring a global network of leading consultants with expertise in agricultural economics, venture capital, technology and entrepreneurship, and data-driven research to help our clients build the food system of the future.
Mark Ferguson (Ferg)
Mark has spent his career in extensive agriculture working throughout Australia and New Zealand. He grew up on the family farm in the Victorian Mallee . Mark has a PhD in applied sheep genetics and is a recognised leader in the sheep industry. He now owns and runs an innovation and consulting company neXtgen Agri Ltd based in Christchurch, with projects and clients across both islands of NZ and Australia.
David Ansley
Entrepreneur, management consultant and emerging technology guru.
For five years at Accenture, David led consulting teams to help major APAC corporations develop strategy, improve their supply chains, build better customer interactions, and identify how to create value from IT and the internet.
Recent Speaking and Writing
What Clients and Partners Say
“Sarah is an expert in the agtech industry, constantly on the cutting edge of innovation in the food system. Her contributions to AgFunder News have been invaluable, including a top 10 most read article in 2016. Our work with AgThentic highlights Sarah’s commitment to raise the bar in agtech- she’s someone to watch.”
- Rob Leclerc, CEO, AgFunder
“Each year we have hundreds of students come through MIT Sloan, and each year I am proud to see how capable and accomplished our students are. Then every once in awhile someone comes along who truly blows me away. Sarah is one of a kind - she is both visionary and practical, disciplined and joyful, expert and eager to learn. Watch out, world.
- Jason Jay, Director, Sustainability Initiative at MIT Sloan
“Sarah was a great addition to the 2017 400M agtech event. Sarah is on top of the latest topics in agtech globally, and her talk was engaging and informative. Many of the pitching startups also appreciated that Sarah was able to provide insights and practical pitch feedback after the event.”
- Ben Lyons, CEO, Food Leaders Australia
