Speaker Categories: 2019

Xiaoyu Li

Business Manager, SPM Biosciences (Beijing) Co., Ltd.

Mr. Xiaoyu (David) Li is Business Manager of SPM Biosciences (Beijing) Co., Ltd. David is the business manager of SPM Biosciences to promote novel adjuvant on drone spraying and formulation innovation together with IPP, CAAS and China Agricultural University. He is a author of agribusiness global and has third-party alliance with key China agrochemical companies. Before SPM, David worked for Marketing Division of Bayer CropScience China as key account manager in charge of third-party alliance business. He also worked for Nutrichem and Mitsubishi Corporation China Commerce to develop global agrochemical market based on his more than ten years’ experience in China agrochemical industry.

Dr. Huizhu Yuan

Professor of Institute of Plant Protection
Chinese Academy of Agriculture Science (CAAS)

As an expert of pesticide science, Dr. Yuan is a leader of projects on National Natural Science Foundation of China. As a member of crop protection instruction team in MOA, China, he is focusing on reduction of pesticide application. Dr. Yuan is also a Director of MOA’s Pesticide Research & Pesticide Application Committee. He is the founder of Joint Laboratory for UAV Agriculture with DJI to promote the digital farming and precision farming by new technology.

Dr. Xuemin Wu

Professor of National Pesticide Formulation Laboratory 
China Agriculture University

Dr. Xuemin Wu is Professor of National Pesticide Formulation Laboratory, China Agriculture University. Dr. Wu is the key advisor & expert of pesticide regulation to MOA & Ministry of Environmental Protection. He is also the expert of pesticide analysis of MOA. Focusing on pesticide formulation. Dr. Wu is the leader of pesticide formulation projects of National Natural Science Foundation of China. Dr. Wu is working with multinational companies to develop formulation technology of drone spraying and be the key advisor on formulation of drone application to ICAMA, MOA on the coming new regulation.

Prof. Dr. Peter Baur

Head of Global Competence Center Crop Solutions, Clariant

Prof. Dr. Peter Baur heads the global Competence Center Crop Solutions, Clariant Frankfurt, Germany. With his international team of agronomists and chemists, he works on novel adjuvants and formulants, formulation development, unique application and bioavailability profiling tests, and a state of the art R&D phytotron. Before joining Clariant he was 13 years with Bayer CropScience responsible for global optimization of bioavailability and delivery.

He is external Professor at the Faculty of Natural Sciences, Leibniz Univ. of Hannover and past President of the International Society of Adjuvants for Agrochemicals and organizing the 2010 symposium in Munich.

David Frabotta

Editorial Market Development Director, Meister Media Worldwide

David Frabotta is Editorial Market Development Director for Meister Media Worldwide’s Global Precision Initiative and AgriBusiness Global. He is an award-winning journalist and has worked in agriculture and agronomy for 12+ years. He has developed conferences and exhibitions that advocate and advance crop production technologies throughout Asia, Africa, and the Americas and continues to scour the globe for agriculture trends and insights. Contact him any time to discuss new technologies and adoption trends in your region at [email protected].

Lawrence Yu

President (Asia Pacific), AMVAC Singapore Pte Ltd

Lawrence Yu is President of AMVAC’s Asia Pacific business and is leading the introduction of AMVAC’s SIMPAS closed-delivery system in Asia Pacific. In his 40-year professional career, he has contributed to the success of many firms in the crop protection industry, including Uniroyal, Roussel Uclaf, Hoechst, AgrEvo, Bayer CropScience and Sumitomo Chemical. He has been Regional Head for the Health and Crop Sciences Sector of Sumitomo Chemical in Singapore, where he successfully pioneered business expansion in China, India, Japan and Southeast Asia. Prior to that, he was the President of Bayer CropScience in Japan. He has also been active in the industry trade association CropLife Asia, as well as the Committee Chairman for Anti-Counterfeits.

Siang Hee Tan

Executive Director, CropLife Asia

Dr. Tan is currently Executive Director of CropLife Asia, the Asian operation of an international trade association with a presence in 91 countries. At CropLife Asia, he is responsible for directing Regulatory Affairs, Intellectual Property Rights, Crop Protection, Seeds and Biotechnology and Advocacy & Outreach programmes in 15 Asian countries. Also is involved in various UN agendas including “The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development”. Other professional experience includes set-up the University of Putra Malaysia’s (UPM) Genome Centre, and management of 2 start-up ventures developing Bioinformatics Software and Edible Birdnest. Additionally, at Sime Darby he was responsible for: setting-up the biotechnology Section for the Sime Darby Technology Centre, for project managing the Northern Corridor Economic Region Project (NCER) on large scale farming and Aeroponics Vegetables Farming, and for developing an agri- entrepreneur program. He was also the CEO of HLH-Agri International Pte Ltd managing Agri-tainment park, Corn processing factory in China, commodity trading and large scale maize farming in Indonesia and Cambodia. Dr. Tan holds a B.Sc. in Plant Pathology from the Universiti Pertanian Malaysia, a M.Sc in Genetic Engineering from Universiti Putra Malaysia and a Ph.D. in Molecular Biology (Plant Virus) from Okayama University in Japan. Professional recognition includes a Silver Award at the 2005 Geneva Intl Exhibitions & Inventions of New Techniques and Products, a US Government Cochran Fellowship for biological research at Case Western Reserve University in Ohio, and UPM awards for Research & Development.

Jin Xi (JX) Cheong

CEO, Poladrone

Jin Xi (JX) Cheong is currently the CEO of Poladrone, a leading UAS (drones) solutions company. He was awarded as a Forbes Asia 30 under 30 recipient in 2019 for Poladrone’s work in the agriculture sector. To date, Poladrone has analysed over 300,000 hectares of land within ASEAN with deep understanding on how drones can increase productivity. He is a certified remote pilot and holds an Aerospace Engineering degree from Monash University. He believes that analytics and automation is key to achieving sustainability across all industries.

Fernando Lopez

Asia Pacific Lead/ Agro, Lamberti SpA

Fernando Lopez joined Lamberti in early 2019 to lead the Asia Pacific Region. Since 2015 he served as North America Lead for Solvay.

Fernando has 25 years of broad experience in the agriculture, specialty chemical, and marketing services industries, most recently at BASF Crop Protection and Becker Underwood. Prior to that Fernando was Division Vice President, Market Strategy for Maritz.  Earlier in his career, he spent more than ten years with Monsanto in various countries and functions (sales, marketing, planning, M&A).

Fernando holds an MBA in International Management from Thunderbird in Glendale, AZ, and a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from Harvard University in Cambridge, MA.  He is happily married and has four children.

Paul Voutier

Director of Knowledge and Innovation, Grow Asia

Paul is building a community of practice that brings together business, government and NGOs leaders who share a commitment to using new innovations to make smallholder value chains more productive and sustainable. He delivers webinars, open innovation events, reports, presentations and networking events. Digitization is a core element of the program, as it will impact every aspect of farming – from advanced technology that can grow more resilient crops, to mobile financing solutions that can help smallholder farmers access credit.

He has significant experience building smallholder supply chains in the cocoa, citrus, cassava and rubber industries. Before joining Grow Asia, he worked with agribusinesses including Mondelez International, Olam, Syngenta, Heineken and Ironbark Citrus.

Grow Asia is a multi-stakeholder partnership platform that catalyzes action on inclusive agricultural development in South East Asia. Grow Asia was established by the World Economic Forum in collaboration with the ASEAN Secretariat.  We drive collaborations between farmers, businesses and policymakers that bring greater productivity and profitable in smallholder value chains.  Grow Asia has seven offices across South East Asia.