Speakers 2025

Elizabeth Crawford

Senior Editor

FoodNavigator - USA

Elizabeth is the senior editor of FoodNavigator-USA, a leading online news source for the food industry that offers a 360-degree view of the food and beverage market, spanning everything from investment, incubation and innovation to ingredients, food science and product formulation, labelling, litigation, trends and more.

Elizabeth has more than two decades of experience covering the food, supplement and healthcare industries through business, regulatory and legislative lenses. She is the host of FoodNavigator-USA’s weekly Soup-To-Nuts podcast that tracks emerging trends, regulatory pressures and marketing strategies.

Ricardo Martinez

President, CPO & Co-Founder

Terra Bioindustries

Ricardo Martinez is the President, Chief Product Officer, and one of two Co-founders of Terra Bioindustries, a groundbreaking agri-food-tech company focused on valorizing agro-industrial
co-products into multiple valuable ingredient side streams for food, pet food, and bioproducts applications. As President and CPO, he is responsible for leading client and business development, driving new product market entries for current and new ingredient lines, and identifying new valorization opportunities.

Ricardo is trained in Project Management, Six Sigma, Lean Manufacturing, and Sustainable Finance—tools that enable him to implement agile and sustainable methodologies for business and product development. He has more than six years of experience as an entrepreneur in the Agri-Tech space and over ten years of experience in bioprocesses industrialization. Before working full-time at Terra, Ricardo led the Upstream team for the largest biotechnology investment in Canada for vaccine manufacturing at a major global vaccine company in Toronto.

Ricardo earned his Master’s in Applied Science in Chemical Engineering from the University of Waterloo in 2016 and holds a Bachelor in Applied Science in Biotechnology Engineering from ITESM (Monterrey Institute of Technology, Mexico). Representing Terra, he has participated in several international programs and projects, including the XPRIZE competition, IndieBio, CDL Rockies, and the Liveability Challenge in Singapore.

Braden Douglas

CEO & Founding Partner

Crew Marketing Partners

Braden Douglas is the founder of Crew Marketing Partners, a premier marketing & creative agency specializing in CPG Food & Beverage brands. Braden started his career in brand management at Procter & Gamble and Frito Lay in Toronto and started Crew in 2007 in Vancouver, BC and now has offices in Toronto and the US.

Crew’s client list includes some of the top food brands in North America including Lindt chocolate, Nature’s Path Foods, Dairy Farmers of Ontario, UNFI, Canada Pork, Silver Hills Bakery, Premium Brands, BC Fresh and many more.

He is also an active investor in food companies. Braden is part-owner in the fastest growing snack company in Canada called Naturally Homegrown Foods which has the brands Hardbite Potato Chips and Poptastic Popcorn.

In his spare time, he writes and speaks on leadership at BradenDouglas.com. His book Becoming a Leader of Impact: How Your Influence Can Change the World is an Amazon best-seller and has been translated into 6 languages. Braden lives in Fort Worth, Texas with his wife and two teenage children. He is an avid reader, runner, soccer player, and health enthusiast.

Terry Tyson

VP Oat Milling Operations

Grain Millers, Inc.

Terry grew up on the family grain farm in Harris, SK, about 50 miles SW of Saskatoon. After graduating from Harris Tessier High School, Terry attended the University of Regina’s Journalism program but decided instead to pursue a career in agriculture. After a brief training period in Pioneer Grain’s elevator system, Terry joined the trading side of the business in the late 90’s trading feed wheat and barley out of Saskatchewan.

In 1999 Terry took the reins of Richardson’s oat merchandising team, relocating to Winnipeg, but still wearing green to football games. In summer 2001 Grain Millers – a significant trading partner – acquired Popowich Milling in Yorkton, and Terry jumped at the chance to move back to Saskatchewan, and closer to home, accepting a position as their Grain Procurement Manager. Terry converted the Grain Millers sourcing program at Yorkton from a trade-supplied model to a producer-direct model, developing strong relationships with hundreds of farmers and positioning Grain Millers as a direct link between its farmer-suppliers and food company customers.

Over the past 20+ years, Grain Millers’ business has grown significantly, and in 2017 Terry became the General Manager of Grain Millers Canada, broadening his scope of responsibility across the breadth of the business. Early this year, Terry became the President of Grain Millers Canada, and the Vice President of Oat Milling Operations of Grain Millers, Inc. Terry and wife Dana reside in Yorkton with their two teenaged children.

David Donnan

Adjunct Professor, Northwestern University,

President Silvertip Management

David Donnan is a business leader and consultant with significant global experience in the agriculture, food and retail industries. During his career, David has run operating companies, managed food plants and consulted to leading global retail and consumer product companies.

David is an adjunct professor at Northwestern University teaching a graduate course on the Future of Sustainable Food & Agriculture. He is also a Partner Emeritus with Kearney, an international management consulting firm, where he ran the global food and agriculture practice.

A champion of innovation in the food sector, David works as an investor and mentor with many entrepreneurs and startups in the nutrition, food and agriculture industry. He recently served a 3-year term as a Public Board Member of The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, that represents the 100,000 registered dieticians in the US. He often speaks at leading conferences on the topics of consumer nutrition, technology and consumer trends.

David is a Limited Partner of Spiral Sun Investments, an early stage venture capital firm focusing on natural foods and food supplements. He also serves on the boards of Protein Industries Canada, a public-private partnership to promote plant based protein industries and the Foundation for Food & Agriculture Research that funds advanced research into sustainable agriculture.

David is a professional engineer and holds a Masters in Business Administration from the Rotman School at the University of Toronto.