Cliona is the Chief Executive Director of Foundation Earth driving systemic change across the agro-food sector. She has broad background in the environmental sector. She has worked as an environmental specialist for over 23 years, starting as an expert in Environmental Impact Assessment evaluating UK development plans for the county of Surrey and the Network Rail Power Supply Upgrade initiative.

Cliona has chaired the European Commission’s Enterprise Europe Network Environment Sector Group, driving the uptake of resource efficiency and circular economy solutions for SMEs across Europe. Cliona has also collaborated as an expert with the European Commission on advancing the circular economy, climate policy and innovation agenda as a member of the Circular Economy Expert Finance Group and the EU Coordination Group on Circular Economy. She has worked across Europe with national and regional public authorities to design, develop and deliver large scale, multi-sectorial plans for decarbonization and transition to a low-carbon, circular economy for industrial value chains.

In addition, Cliona is the leading circular economy expert Foundation COTEC, Spain’s leading innovation expert group and has served as an expert evaluator and judge of climate and circular economy initiative.

Jago is Chief Strategy Officer at Finnebrogue Artisan, setting the long-term strategic direction of the business, as well as leading the firm’s public affairs engagement, media relations and business-to-business communications.

Jago directed the media launch of Finnebrogue’s revolutionary nitrite-free Naked Bacon, acclaimed as the most talked about food product launch for many years. He now leads the firm’s activity in driving the nitrite-free agenda; in promoting more sustainable food production; and works closely with Finnebrogue’s customers and partners to promote the world-beating products that we produce.

Before joining Foundation Earth, Jago was a director at one of London’s leading political communications and public relations firms, Media Intelligence partners. During this time he advised some of the highest profile campaigns, companies and charities in the UK, as well as former cabinet ministers, members of Parliament and Members of the European Parliament. He worked on the historic campaign to leave the European Union in 2016.

Kerry graduated with an honours degree in Law & Accounting from Queens University, Belfast in 2004. After a year spent travelling solo, she returned to Belfast’s Institution of Professional Legal Studies to qualify as a solicitor, specialising in Immigration Law at the Law Centre before, heading up the Finance and HR departments at Finnebrogue for seven years during a period of phenomenal growth both in staff numbers, and in cash investment. Leaving Finnebrogue’s full time employment in 2015 to start a family and pursue other interests, she remains a Director on the Board.

Since 2015, as well as juggling a busy family life with 3 young children, she runs her own business with her husband Aaron, and has set up and chairs Open Ormeau Community Collective. She is also a member of both the Climate Coalition NI, the group that created the Northern Ireland Assembly PMB for a Climate Bill for Northern Ireland, and a member of Trust The People, a UK-wide group that runs courses on participative democracy to promote community strength and resilience to meet and mitigate the climate crisis. 

Currently a non-executive Director on the Board of Hume Brophy since March 2022, Mella has broad expertise in the food and drinks sector, holding the position of Director for Government Affairs EMEA for Monsanto from 2002 to 2007, and more recently Director General of FoodDrinkEurope, the European food and drink industry organisation, since 2007.
Previous positions she has held include European Director for International Relations at Eridania Béghin-Say and Manager at Ferruzzi Europa, Europe’s largest agri-industrial group. She has held numerous additional high-level posts with the European Commission (member of various EU Scientific Committees) and was a non-executive director of Aer Lingus from 2011 to 2013.
Mella Frewen is also a board member of several organisations involved in European affairs, including ERIF (European Regulatory and Innovation Forum), ReImagine Europa, RISE (Rural Investment for a Sustainable Europe) Foundation, and the IIEA (Institute for International and European Affairs). She is a member of the Jury of EUCYS (European Union Contest for Young Scientists) and the Vice Chair of the FAO/OECD’s Advisory Board for Responsible Business Conduct across global agri-food chains.
Mella holds a Master’s degree in Marine science, an INSEAD certificate in International Operations Management, and a Harvard certificate in International Agri-industrial affairs. Of Irish nationality, she is married to an Italian and together they have three young adult children.

Barbaros Corekoglu is responsible for building and leveraging global platforms, programmes and initiatives to deliver on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) at Rabobank. Previously, Barbaros was the executive advisor to the CEO of European Institute of Innovation & Technology (EIT) Food and helped define the impact pathways of the organisation. Working across EIT Food’s Innovation, Business Creation, Education and Public Engagement Departments, he has established strategic and institutional partnerships with European and International Organisations for impact investing to enable food systems transformation. Barbaros has been advising multinational agri-food companies on agriculture, food, health and sustainability policies for nearly 15 years. He has been instrumental in the development of private-sector voluntary sustainability certification schemes of agricultural feedstocks, represented agrifood industries as a sustainability expert at the European Committee for Standardisation (CEN), and serves at various international expert groups on food, climate and sustainability, including within the World Economic Forum. He co-founded various initiatives including the European Bioeconomy Alliance, UNFCCC Innovation Hub, COP Food Systems Pavilion and Regenerative Agriculture Impact Fund. He has an academic background in EU Diplomacy from the College of Europe in Bruges, and in Economics.