Contact Name
Laura Lindsey
Contact Phone
5738842394
Contact Email
lindseylau@missouri.edu
Speaker(s) Information
Charlie Arnot is recognized as a thought leader in food and agriculture. He is highly regarded as both a writer and sought-after speaker who engages audiences across the globe. Charlie has more than 25 years of experience working in communications, public relations and issues management within the food system. He is the founder and president of Look East, an employee-owned consulting firm. He also serves as CEO of the Center for Food Integrity, a international non-profit organization dedicated to building consumer trust and confidence in today's food system.
Charlie is frequently sought out by media for his insight on food and agriculture issues and has been quoted in the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Fortune, Time, NPR, CNBC, The National Journal, Entrepreneur, Yahoo health, Huffington Post, Grist and dozens of trade publications globally.
Charlie is the author of, “Size Matters, Why We Love to Hate Big Food,” which was named the top ag book of 2018 by noted DC journalist Jerry Hagstrom who said, “Charlie Arnot is the only consumer analyst who can explain to agribusiness executives why consumers distrust them – and not make the executives angry.”
Charlie spent ten years as a corporate officer for a leading food company; he worked for a public relations agency, was an award-winning radio journalist and worked in video and film. Charlie grew up in southeast Nebraska and graduated from the University of Nebraska with a Bachelor of Journalism degree.
Jason Clay is senior vice president for markets and executive director of the Markets Institute at WWF. In these roles he works with companies on more sustainable supply chains as well as helping them identify and address emerging global issues, trends, and tools impacting their supply chains in more sustainable, timely, cost-effective, and scalable ways. His career has ranged from working on a family farm to working for the US Department of Agriculture. He taught at Harvard and Yale and spent more than 35 years with human rights and environmental NGOs.
In 1988, Clay founded Rainforest Marketing, set up a trading company within an NGO, helped forest based groups access global markets, and launched Ben & Jerry’s Rainforest Crunch, plus more than 200 other products with sales of $100 million. From 1999 to 2003, he co-directed a consortium with WWF, the World Bank, UN FAO, and NACA to identify the most significant environmental and social impacts of shrimp aquaculture as well as practices to reduce them.
From 2004 to 2012, he convened multistakeholder roundtables to create performance-based standards for commodities including salmon, soy, sugarcane, cotton, and beef. He was pivotal in launching WWF’s work on agriculture, aquaculture, livestock, and Market Transformation in 2006.
Clay leads WWF-US efforts to improve private sector supply chain management and has helped entire sectors improve their sustainability performance (e.g., the Global Salmon Initiative). Clay has authored 18 books and 400 articles and has given more than 1,000 invited presentations. He studied anthropology and agriculture at Harvard, the London School of Economics, and Cornell (PhD).
