2023 Steering Committee

Michael is the Managing Director for the APAC region at SVG Ventures|THRIVE. He launched his first company at 21 and four more across different industries over 15 years. Prior to joining SVG Thrive he led AgriFood Tech at BDO Australia, advising various AgriTech and AgriBusiness stakeholders
Recognised in the InDaily 40 under 40 awards and his TEDx talk on redesigning the food system, Michael uses his entrepreneurial expertise to help AgriFood Tech startups commercialise and scale their innovations.
Michael is also a co-organiser of the South Australian AgriTech Meetup Group, and Steering committee member for EvokeAg, where he is passionate about growing the AgriFood tech ecosystem.

Oli has been a grower in McLaren Vale since 2015, and founded the SA AgriTech Meetup, bringing together a community of more than 1,700 developers, farmers, and entrepreneurs interested in the agricultural technology space to develop novel solutions in Agtech.
Oli is VP of Special Projects at FarmLab, and has been working with Meat & Livestock Australia and the Clean Energy Regulator for the past two years to scale soil carbon baselining and decarbonize supply chains.

Phil Morle is a partner at Main Sequence where he leads the Feed 10 billion People challenge. He’s passionate about delivering healthier people and a healthier planet, leading him to develop an interest in a number of adjacent areas such as decarbonisation, synthetic biology, new materials, and recycling. Since joining, he has led the firm’s company creation program called Venture Science, developing notable startups such as v2food, Samsara Eco and Eden Brew.

Sarah Nolet is a Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Tenacious Ventures, a venture firm focused on decarbonizing the food system and building a resilient, profitable future of agriculture. Sarah regularly publishes her insights on the future of the industry and the realities of scaling a venture firm to thousands of followers, and is a respected advisor to agrifood tech companies in the Tenacious Ventures portfolio and beyond. Sarah is also the host of the podcast AgTech…So What?, where she digs into the “so what” behind the latest food & ag innovations.

Shifka is a strategic advisor and project manager with the Israel-Australia Chamber of Commerce (IACC). She leads all agriculture activities for the Chamber and connects people in the agritech and food tech space.
Shifka’s opinion and knowledge of plant and animal science, agriculture and food tech have allowed her to work with some of the world’s leading agriculture government departments, companies and VCs.
A young entrepreneur herself in medical devices, strategic market entry, and analysis, Shifka is committed to incubating and scaling innovative start-ups by identifying the economic and strategic opportunities locally and globally through her deep and broad market knowledge. She proactively enables collaborations to support sustainable growth plans for scale-up’s products and services locally and globally with local industry and government.
Shifka is also passionate about the environment and organisations’ ESG responsibilities.
Shifka and was born and raised in upstate New York and is a dual US/Israeli citizen. She currently lives in Israel and has one wonderful son. Her inquisitive mind, go-getter attitude and willingness to listen and work across industries and cultures have helped her gain deep insights into the needs of future societies and industries.

Justin is an accomplished entrepreneur, Founder, and Managing Director of AgriWebb, an AgTech SaaS company that manages over 20 million livestock across 150 million acres with $50 billion in agricultural assets. Prior to AgriWebb, Justin founded, scaled and sold three companies, including AI-based asset management hedge funds. He also held senior positions at Macquarie, BlackRock and advises International Acquisition Partners & Tonnerre Investments. Justin’s sporting background includes rowing internationally for Harvard, Oxford, and Australia. Academically, Justin holds an Honors BA in Economics and Applied Mathematics from Harvard and an MBA with distinction from Oxford, where he was the OBA Scholar.

Peter is the founder of Agritech New Zealand and currently Convenor of the 2035 Oceania Summit. Peter sits on the Western Growers Innovation & Technology Centre Global Advisory Board and provides advice to a number of emerging agrifood tech ecosystems.
Peter is also a co-founder of Tauranga-based technology incubator, WNT Ventures. He’s a limited partner and has invested in several early-stage New Zealand startups.
Peter has sat on the evokeAG. steering committee since 2018 and was delighted to join the growAG. steering committee, prior to its establishment phase.
Peter is committed to strengthening the trans-Tasman opportunity through increased collaborative and partnership opportunities.