Alejandro Ruiz has always been fascinated by international trade, which led him to pursue a Major in International Business. He began his career in the international division of the Mexican Ministry of Agriculture, where he contributed to several trade development and international cooperation projects. Alejandro also participated in the negotiations of key free trade agreements for Mexico, including those with the European Union, the European Free Trade Association, and Central America.

Currently, Alejandro serves as the Trade Commissioner for Agri-food at the Canadian Embassy in Mexico. In this role, he supports Canadian companies in the agriculture, food, beverages, fisheries, and biotechnology sectors to establish and grow their business presence in Mexico. His exceptional work at the Embassy has been recognized with the “Head of the Public Service Award” from the Government of Canada in the category of Excellence in Service Delivery.

Alejandro’s goal is to continue specializing in international trade, leveraging his knowledge and experience to help the organizations he works for achieve their objectives while pursuing professional growth.

Linkedin Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alejandro-ruiz-b9951499/

Kyle Larkin is the Executive Director of Grain Growers of Canada.

Kyle is an award-winning public affairs executive who has spent over a decade in government relations, public relations and politics. He has managed and executed public affairs strategies for national and provincial organizations, achieving short-term and long-term objectives. Kyle has successfully changed policies at both federal and provincial levels and has had his work featured in media publications, such as The Globe and Mail, National Post, CBC, BBC and The Hill Times.

Kyle was most recently the Vice-President at a public affairs firm where he worked closely with associations from across Canada. Prior to this, he worked in numerous offices on Parliament Hill, most notably for the Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister. Kyle has also gained valuable experience working at other public affairs and policy research firms, at a national association leading their government relations activities, and has been involved in numerous federal and provincial election campaigns.

Kyle is a recipient of the 2019 Government Relations Campaign of the Year by the Canadian Public Relations Society (CPRS) for his work in creating the third ever national self-regulated college in Canada. He is also the recipient of the 2022 Canadian Society of Association Executives (CSAE) Award of Distinction for his work in advancing government climate changes objectives.

Kyle holds an Honours Bachelor of Social Sciences in International Studies and Modern Languages, with a minor in History and is fluently bilingual.

Linkedin Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kyle-larkin/?originalSubdomain=ca

CN is a world-class transportation leader and trade-enabler, with 19,500 of track and access to over 75 per cent of the US population and all major Canadian markets. We move over 300 million tons of natural resources, manufactured products and finished good throughout North America annually.

I am responsible for leading the marketing activities for all carload movement of grain and processed grain products across the CN network, as well as leading sales-related activities for a number of US-based, agricultural-related customers focused on bulk grain trading along with corn, soybean, and cereal processing. I also have sales responsibilities for a number of accounts in western Canada focused on the shipment of specialty crops.

Linkedin Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidprzednowek/?originalSubdomain=ca

Dr. Sylvain Charlebois is a Professor in food distribution and policy in the Faculties of Management and Agriculture at Dalhousie University in Halifax. He is also the Senior Director of the Agri-food Analytics Lab, also located at Dalhousie University. Before joining Dalhousie, he was affiliated with the University of Guelph’s Arrell Food Institute, which he co-founded. Known as “The Food Professor”, his current research interest lies in the broad area of food distribution, security and safety. Google Scholar ranks him as one of the world’s most cited scholars in food supply chain management, food value chains and traceability.

He has authored five books on global food systems, his most recent one published in 2017 by Wiley-Blackwell entitled “Food Safety, Risk Intelligence and Benchmarking”. He has also published over 500 peer-reviewed journal articles in several academic publications. Furthermore, his research has been featured in several newspapers and media groups, including The Lancet, The Economist, the New York Times, the Boston Globe, the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, BBC, NBC, ABC, Fox News, Foreign Affairs, the Globe & Mail, the National Post and the Toronto Star.

Dr. Charlebois sits on a few company boards, and supports many organizations as a special advisor, including some publicly traded companies. Charlebois is also a member of the Scientific Council of the Business Scientific Institute, based in Luxemburg. Dr. Charlebois is a member of the Global Food Traceability Centre’s Advisory Board based in Washington DC, and a member of the National Scientific Committee of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) in Ottawa.

Linkedin Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thefoodprofessor/?originalSubdomain=ca

Jarad Farmer, based is a Managing Director, Sales at Canadian Pacific Railway. He brings experience from previous roles at Canadian Pacific Railway and Canadian Pacific. Jarad holds a Southern Alberta Institute of Technology (SAIT). With a robust skill set that includes Strategic Planning, Transportation, Logistics, Operations Management, Supply Chain Management and more.

Linkedin Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jarad-farmer-7478126/

Dr. Stuart Smyth is a Professor in the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics at the University of Saskatchewan, where he holds the Agri-Food Innovation and Sustainability Enhancement Chair. His research focuses on sustainability, agriculture, innovation and food. Dr. Smyth publishes twice weekly blogs on these topics at: www.SAIFood.ca. With over 160 academic publications, Dr. Smyth is recognized as a leading expert on barriers to innovation and regulatory efficiency. Dr. Smyth specializes in research on regulatory barriers to food security, especially those that restrict investments into new plant breeding technologies, such as genome editing and that delay, or prevent, the commercialization of genetically modified and genome-edited crops.

Linkedin Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stuart-smyth-b7501044/?originalSubdomain=ca