MAD ACADEMY - Key Persons


Anne-Birgitte Agger

Job Titles:
  • Direktør, Hotel - Og Restaurantskolen

Brian Kaufman

Job Titles:
  • Managing Partner, Westridge Capital

Bushra Tellisi

Job Titles:
  • Communications Assistant

Chido Govera

Zimbabwean activist and mushroom farmer, Chido Govera shares her vision of tomorrow's meal as a key to unlocking great potential. Sign up to our newsletter for all the latest MADness, or help us stay MAD and donate.

Christine Lippert

Job Titles:
  • Member of the Board

Dan Barber

Job Titles:
  • Chef and Co - Owner of the Blue Hill
Dan Barber is Chef and Co-Owner of the Blue Hill restaurants in New York City and Tarrytown, New York and the Co-Founder of the seed company, Row7. He received a B.A. in English at the Tufts University in 1992 and later studied at the French Culinary Institute. Barber has won numerous James Beard Awards, was named one of Time‘s most influential people in 2009, and his writings on food and agricultural policy have appeared in the New York Times, Gourmet, The Nation, Saveur and Food & Wine. He was appointed by President Barack Obama to serve on the President's Council on Physical Fitness, Sports and Nutrition. He is also a member of the Advisory Board to the Harvard Medical School Center for Health and The Global Environment.

David Barber

Job Titles:
  • Member of the Board
  • Co - Founder / Owner, Blue Hill / Founder, Almanac

Dwayne Sye

Job Titles:
  • Founder, the Sye Fund / Co - Founder / Former Chief Information Officer, Cvent

Ed Romein

Job Titles:
  • Program Manager, Environment & Sustainability

Erica Helms

Job Titles:
  • Managing Director of Philanthropy ( US )

Helen Wechsler

Job Titles:
  • Director, Bay Area Food Program, Google

Jack Muirhead

Job Titles:
  • Manager

Jacqueline McGlade

Job Titles:
  • Executive Director of the European Environment Agency
  • Marine Biologist and Environmental Informatics Professor
Jacqueline McGlade is a leading marine biologist and environmental informatics professor. Her research focuses on the spatial and nonlinear dynamics of ecosystems, climate change, and scenario development. Jacqueline became Executive Director of the European Environment Agency in Copenhagen, Denmark in June 2003. Following this appointment, she took leave from her post as Professor of Environmental Informatics in the Department of Mathematics at University College London, where her main areas of research included environmental technologies and the international politics of the environment and natural resources. Jacqueline has worked extensively in North America, south-east Asia and west Africa; she has published more than 100 research papers, written popular articles, presented and appeared in many radio and television programs, including her own BBC series the Ocean Planet and Learning from Nature.

Jakob Schou Midtgaard

Job Titles:
  • Partner, Accura

Jessica Koslow

Job Titles:
  • Member of the Board
  • Chef / Owner, Sqirl

Kelli Hayes

Job Titles:
  • Member of the Board
  • Vice President of Strategy, DSM

Kim Rahbek

Job Titles:
  • Partner and CEO, Falsters Kyst / Founder, Sticks'N'Sushi

Laura Hagel

Job Titles:
  • VILD MAD Project Coordinator

Lena Hennessy

Job Titles:
  • Member of the Board
  • CEO, Noma

Lesley Price

Job Titles:
  • Brand Director

Lisa Abend - CCO

Job Titles:
  • Head of Communications

Mads Holme

Job Titles:
  • Managing Partner, ReD Associates

Magnus Nilsson

Job Titles:
  • Chef, Author & Co - Chair of the

Massimo Montanari

Job Titles:
  • Expert
Massimo Montanari is a leading expert in food history and plays an important role in the popularization of scientific research to the general public. Massimo is currently professor of Medieval History at the University of Bologna in Italy. He has been invited as visiting professor to a number of leading universities in Europe, Japan, the United States, Mexico and Canada.

Melina Shannon-DiPietro

Job Titles:
  • Executive Director

Mikkel-Lau Mikkelsen

Job Titles:
  • VILD MAD Director

Molly Jahn

Job Titles:
  • Dean of the College of Agricultural and Life
  • U.S. Commissioner for Sustainable Agriculture
Molly Jahn is the dean of the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Prior to this, she was a professor in the departments of Plant Breeding & Genetics and Plant Biology at Cornell University. She has worked extensively overseas to link crop breeding with improved human nutrition and human welfare. Molly has served as the U.S. Commissioner for Sustainable Agriculture and Climate Change, USAID Scientific Liaison Officer and member of the board of The World Vegetable Centre, Director of the Public Seed Initiative and the Organic Seed Partnership, member of the Editorial Board and Executive Committee of The Plant Cell, and is currently a member of the National Academies of Science Board on Agriculture and Natural Resources.

Peter Kreiner

Job Titles:
  • Member of the Board
  • Chairman / Co - Owner, Noma

René Redzepi

Job Titles:
  • Head Chef / Co - Owner, Noma / Founder, MAD

Richard Newhagen - CFO

Job Titles:
  • Head of Finance

Roberta Garavano

Job Titles:
  • Project Manager

Roger Stein

Job Titles:
  • Founder, Soho Development Co, LLC

Sarah Jansson

Job Titles:
  • Project Assistant

Simona Maschi

Job Titles:
  • Founder, Copenhagen Institute for Interactive Design

Stefano Mancuso - Founder

Job Titles:
  • Founder
Stefano Mancuso is a founder of the study of plant neurobiology, which explores signalling and communication at all levels of biological organization, from genetics to molecules, cells and ecological communities. He is a professor of Plant, Soil and Environmental Science at the University of Florence, ItalY and co-founder of the LINV (the International Laboratory of Plant Neurobiology). As this talk from MAD1 proves, Stefano works to transform our view of plants from simple organisms to complex ecological structures and communities that can gather, process, and share important information.

Tatiana Levha

Job Titles:
  • Member of the Board
  • Co - Owner / Chef, Le Servan, Double Dragon

Wade Davis

Job Titles:
  • VP of Inclusion for Product, Netflix