By Lynda Kiernan, Global AgInvesting Media

Agricultural investment manager NewAg Partners (“NewAg”) announced the appointment of Russell Read, CFA, Ph,D. to its Board of Directors, and to the role of Chairman of its Investment Committee. 

Founded in 2019 by Detlef Shoen, NewAg aims to be a catalyst for shifting traditional agriculture to regenerative production systems and practices. NewAg offers institutional investors the ability to sustainably deploy capital at scale and to generate risk-adjusted financial returns and a positive impact on the environment. The culmination of this work is to create and manage a portfolio of large-scale agriculture and midstream agribusiness investments which, over time, will sequester measurable and quantifiable CO² in levels demonstrative of the potential for climate-positive food production.

Marcus Wignell, a managing director at NewAg Partners, told GAI News that geographically, the firm’s current core markets are the U.S., Australia, Portugal, and Uruguay. In these markets, NewAg provides investment management, advisory, asset allocation, platform development, and due diligence support.

Joining this highly-skilled team is Dr. Russell Read. Dr Read is group managing partner of the C Change Group – an investment firm focusing on “initiatives which can materially and positively transform the world’s utilization of natural resources” through improving agricultural productivity across sub-Saharan Africa.

Dr. Read will continue in his work as managing director of C Change, which will become a stakeholder in NewAg. He will bring his vigor and expertise to bear on investments in NewAg’s pipeline – ensuring that they demonstrate a repeatable process and operate in a way that meets NewAg’s objectives, Wignell explained to GAI News. He added that Dr. Read’s work in African agriculture overlaps initiatives being undertaken in NewAg’s targeted geographies.

“I’m thrilled to be with NewAg,” Dr. Read told GAI News. “My efforts have been to transform African agriculture through my work with C Change, since 2011. “Now, joining forces with NewAg, the goal is to crystalize institutional quality access to transformative agriculture global opportunities. These opportunities should generate a compelling level of investment return while promoting the natural world at a time when bond yields remain generally, unattractively low.”

This expertise is born of an immense well of experience. Dr. Read earned his undergraduate degree in Statistics and an MBA in Finance and International Business from the University of Chicago, followed by a master’s degree in Economics and a Ph,D. in Political Economy, with a focus on the role of natural resources in national economic growth, from Stanford University.

Dr. Read’s previous roles include:

~ CIO, CAlPERS, the largest pension system in North America

~ CIO and Deputy Chief Executive, Gulf Investment Corporation and,

~ CIO, Alaska Permanent Fund Corporation, the largest sovereign wealth institutional investor.

Dr. Read has also served as the Chairman of the Investors’ Committee for the President’s Working Group on Financial Markets under Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson.

 

– Lynda Kiernan is editor with GAI Media, and is managing editor and daily contributor for Global AgInvesting’s AgInvesting Weekly News and  Agtech Intel News, and HighQuest Group’s Oilseed & Grain News. She is also a contributor to the GAI Gazette. She can be reached at lkiernan@globalaginvesting.com.