Zara Anna Aspenson

Evaluating Success: Exploring Key Partnerships and Frameworks for Food Systems Financing
Tuesday, November 25, 2:00 - 3:30 PM

Senior Associate
Croatan Institute

Zara Anna Aspenson is a Senior Associate at Croatan Institute, where her work focuses on place-based agricultural solutions to rebuilding healthy ecosystems and communities. Before joining Croatan Institute, Aspenson worked as a program associate for Food System Policy at Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future, where she authored, “‘True’ Costs For Food System Reform: An Overview Of True Cost Accounting Literature And Initiatives” and co-authored, “Essential and in Crisis: A Review of the Public Health Threats Facing Farmworkers in the US.”

Her work has also focused on agricultural research and development with ICARDA (CGIAR), as well as project management for community-driven food security initiatives in the highlands of Guatemala. Aspenson holds an M.P.H. from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and a B.A. from American University. She is based in Baltimore, Maryland.

Brendan Buttimer

Navigating Access to Capital Networks in the Food System
Tuesday, May 6, 2:00 - 3:30 PM

Navigating Access to Capital Networks in the Food System
Tuesday, May 6, 2:00 - 3:30 PM

Senior Director, Equitable Food Systems
Reinvestment Fund

As Senior Director, Equitable Food Systems, Brendan Buttimer is responsible for originating, underwriting, and structuring food access projects that meet Reinvestment Fund’s mission.
Prior to joining the organization, he worked for South Carolina Community Loan Fund as a Senior Loan Officer and New Markets Tax Credit Officer. Prior to his CDFI life, he led a food access organization that focused on connecting local farmers to low-access communities.
Buttimer holds an M.A. in History from Armstrong Atlantic State University and completed his Ph.D. coursework in American History at Mississippi State University. His academic work focused on immigrant communities in the South and the social and economic networks they created.

Jen Faigel

Sustaining Food and Farm Investment Amid Federal Funding Shifts
Tuesday, June 24, 2:00 - 3:30 PM

Executive Director
CommonWealth Kitchen

Jen Faigel is co-founder and Executive Director of CommonWealth Kitchen, Greater Boston’s non-profit food business incubator and food business development center.  CWK provides shared-use kitchens combined with wrap-around business and technical support, and coordinated market access to more than 50 diverse food companies annually.  CWK also operates its own small-batch manufacturing operation, working with emerging brands to help scale production, providing on-demand processing for farms, and producing a range of custom products for institutional customers. 
 
Under Jen’s leadership, CWK was named Best Incubator by Boston Magazine, and a Game-Changer by The Boston Globe. Jen was recognized by The Globe as a nonprofit leader to watch, and is a 2019 Barr Foundation Fellow.
 
Before joining CWK, Jen worked for 20+ years doing mission-based real estate development.  Jen helped develop or stabilize more than 1,000 affordable homes, and developed over 250,000 SF of commercial space.  Jen’s motto in life is that it’s not about how high you climb or how fast you run, but how well you bounce!

Sharon Feuer Gruber

Evaluating Success: Exploring Key Partnerships and Frameworks for Food Systems Financing
Tuesday, November 25, 2:00 - 3:30 PM

Principal
SFG Strategies

Sharon Feuer Gruber is a seasoned strategy consultant and results-driven partner to nonprofits, community development financial institutions, small businesses, and governmental agencies. Clients turn to her for market analyses, strategic planning, program design, impact evaluation, marketing and communications, and fundraising / capitalization. In all of her work, Sharon takes a systems approach, is data driven, and authentically engages stakeholders — building clients' capacity for the long term. 

Previously, Sharon served as a contracted Chief Strategy Officer and Senior Advisor for The Global Good Fund, where she helped drive growth across the organization's social impact ecosystem of nonprofit programs, advisory services, and venture capital impact funds. She still supports GGF in the capacity of consultant, supporting impact measurement and an organization-wide rebrand. Sharon also served as Director of Partnerships and Development for City First Enterprises, a community development financial institution, where she helped create and scale the fundraising and communications infrastructure. She also founded another advisory firm, managed a social enterprise focused on the intersection of conservation and food security, and has held leadership positions on nonprofit organizations’ marketing and communications teams.

Ann Finnegan

Navigating Access to Capital Networks in the Food System
Tuesday, May 6, 2:00 - 3:30 PM

Executive Managing Director of Small Business Lending
Grow America

Ann Finnegan is the Executive Managing Director of Grow America Lending, and President of Grow America’s Community Impact Loan Fund. She brings more than 30 years of lending, finance, and development experience to Grow America’s underserved markets small business/lending initiatives in communities throughout the United States. Ms. Finnegan and Grow America have been designing, developing, and implementing Covid-response and recovery resources (both grant and small business loan programs) at scale around the country, including the innovative and impactful Equity Accelerator initiative and the NY Forward, SOAR, Washington FLEX, Nevada Battle Born, and CT Boost Funds.

Ms. Finnegan rejoined Grow America (formerly NDC) senior management team in late 2019, after serving almost nine years as a commercial and small business community banker, where she led the bank to nationwide recognition as an SBA & USDA guaranteed business and non‐profit community facilities lender. Prior to her brief career in community banking, Ms. Finnegan was a Director with National Development Council (NDC), was on the team that secured CDFI status for their SBA Small Business Lending Company, and served as the President of the Grow America Fund for more than a decade. Ms. Finnegan, EDFP, has a business degree from Siena College, an MBA from SUNY Albany, and resides with her family in Upstate NY. She serves on the Board of the Hudson Valley Agribusiness Development Corp and is the Chair of the Farm and Food Growth Fund.

Michael Graff

Harnessing the Power of Bonds: Transforming Food Systems Through Strategic Investment
Tuesday, February 25, 2:00 - 3:30 PM

Partner
McGuireWoods LLP

Mr. Graff has served as bond, underwriter's, bank, borrower's, issuer's or trustee's counsel on dozens of tax-exempt bond financings in Virginia, the District of Columbia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New York, Florida, Mississippi, Nevada, Wisconsin and Idaho. He has extensive experience in all aspects of tax-exempt financings for: small manufacturing companies; private, nonprofit elementary and secondary schools; nonprofit association headquarters; college and university student housing facilities; hospitals and health care facilities; multifamily affordable housing projects (including low-income housing tax credits); solid waste disposal facilities; port facilities; water and waste authorities; community development authorities and other land-based special taxing districts; road and rail transportation projects; and various other borrowers, governmental issuers and their projects. He is the co-author (with William J. Strickland) of "Financing Virginia's Local Governments" in the Virginia Local Government Attorneys' Handbook. A former trial lawyer, Mr. Graff has brought numerous judicial proceedings to establish the validity of municipal bonds. He was a Parkinson scholar at Duke University School of Law and a member of Omicron Delta Kappa at the College of William & Mary.

Dan Miller

Sustaining Food and Farm Investment Amid Federal Funding Shifts
Tuesday, June 24, 2:00 - 3:30 PM

Founder & CEO
Steward

Dan Miller is the Founder and CEO of Steward, an online platform enabling individuals to directly participate in the financing of regenerative agriculture. Through Steward, funders can earn a return while equipping farms and ranches with the capital they need to grow.

Dan was previously Co-Founder and President of Fundrise, the first and largest US real estate crowdfunding platform, which has raised over $4 billion from 400,000 investors since inception.

Steward combines Dan’s background in finance, real estate, and technology with his passion for agriculture stemming from his maternal family, which has been farming on the Eastern Shore of Maryland since the 1880s.

Tammy Nebola

Harnessing the Power of Bonds: Transforming Food Systems Through Strategic Investment
Tuesday, February 25, 2:00 - 3:30 PM

Loan Program Specialist
Iowa Finance Authority

Tammy Nebola is a Program Specialist for the Iowa Agricultural Development Division of the Iowa Finance Authority. She started with the Division in 2008 and manages the two loan programs, the Beginning Farmer Loan Program (Aggie Bond Program) and the Loan Participation Program.
 
Iowa continues to have the most active Aggie Bond program in the nation. Tammy has assisted many other states with best practices when creating or enhancing their Aggie Bond programs.
 
Tammy serves as the Treasurer for the National Council of State Agricultural Finance Programs. They are an association of public and private agricultural financing entities working passionately for the promotion and financing of agricultural development.
 
Tammy attended the University of Iowa and Iowa State University, pursuing a Degree in Accounting. She has over 20 years of banking and finance experience, specializing in agricultural and commercial lending, and agricultural bond financing.

Kenneth Neighbors

Harnessing the Power of Bonds: Transforming Food Systems Through Strategic Investment
Tuesday, February 25, 2:00 - 3:30 PM

Partner
McGuireWoods LLP

Kenneth M. Neighbors focuses his practice primarily in the area of public finance, providing legal advice in support of public-private partnerships, governmental financing and economic development initiatives ranging from transportation and integrated transit projects, tax allocation district formation and financing, mixed-use, commercial, retail and multi-family real estate financings, to 501(c)(3), community land trust, affordable housing, and other tax-exempt bond financings. Ken’s work also focuses on the implementation of federal, state and city supported economic development programs and initiatives. Ken also provides business and legal advice in connection with the acquisition, sale and management of real estate holdings, and provides general representation in connection with corporate matters and corporate and venture capital financing transactions. Prior to his practice as a lawyer, Ken served as a merchant and investment banker, and as a senior officer of an investment firm focusing on the Emerging Domestic Marketplace (EDM).

Nessa Richman

Evaluating Success: Exploring Key Partnerships and Frameworks for Food Systems Financing
Tuesday, November 25, 2:00 - 3:30 PM

Network Director
Rhode Island Food Policy Council

The Rhode Island Food Policy Council, which was established in 2011, promotes a more accessible, equitable, and sustainable food system in Rhode Island. Its work is coordinated by a statewide collaboration of stakeholders from all sectors of the food system. As Director, Nessa Richman leads the Council in achieving its mission to create partnerships and advocate for improvements to the state’s food system to increase and expand its sustainability. She also works with other state leaders in implementing the Rhode Island Food Strategy, a comprehensive five-year plan unveiled in May 2017 to grow and sustain markets for locally grown food for the good of communities, the environment, and the economy.

Molly Riordan

Navigating Access to Capital Networks in the Food System
Tuesday, May 6, 2:00 - 3:30 PM

Director of Institutional Impact
The Center for Good Food Purchasing

Molly Riordan is the Director of Institutional Impact at the Center for Good Food Purchasing, supporting institutions and their vendors to align their food purchases with the Center’s values. Molly has worked in institutional procurement and value chain coordination for over a decade, and has a deep understanding of the complexities and potential for values adoption by public institutions, vendors, and suppliers. Prior to joining the Center, Molly supported hospital food procurement with Health Care Without Harm, and was the City of Philadelphia’s Good Food Purchasing Coordinator, co-housed in the departments of Public Health and Procurement. She holds a Master of Regional Planning (MRP) from Cornell University and is Chair of the American Planning Association’s Food Systems Planning Division.

Dorothy Suput

Sustaining Food and Farm Investment Amid Federal Funding Shifts
Tuesday, June 24, 2:00 - 3:30 PM

Principal
DSuput Consulting, LLC

Dorothy Suput is the Principal at DSuput Consulting. Prior to establishing her consulting practice, she was the founding Executive Director of The Carrot Project, an organization that provides capital and business advising for small and mid-sized farms in New England and the Hudson Valley of NY. Under her leadership, The Carrot Project supported hundreds of farmers and food businesses annually and was one of the earliest vehicles for sustainable agriculture impact investments. In addition to her work with The Carrot Project, she co-founded the Agricultural Viability Alliance, which strengthens the capacity of agricultural business advisors and advocates for increased federal funding in the sector.

She volunteers with multiple organizations that share a common goal of channeling capital into the agricultural system. These include the Board of Managers of the Flexible Capital Fund, the Advisory Board of The Carrot Project, as a Corporator at Walden Mutual Bank, the Board of Trustees of the Massachusetts Society for Promoting Agriculture, and as a Technical Advisor for Northeast SARE.

She holds a master’s degree in environmental policy from Tufts University and a bachelor’s degree in biology from Purdue University. Her academic background integrates economics and natural ecosystems, with a particular focus on their intersection with food and agricultural systems. A formative experience working in a biology laboratory in Switzerland inspired her passion for organic agriculture and regional food systems, especially in contrast to the conventional agriculture she experienced growing up in the Midwest.

A lifelong learner and a dual national, she studies German and Swiss German. She enjoys hiking, horseback riding, gardening, and spending time outdoors with family and friends.

Fawn Zimmerman

Harnessing the Power of Bonds: Transforming Food Systems Through Strategic Investment
Tuesday, February 25, 2:00 - 3:30 PM

Navigating Access to Capital Networks in the Food System
Tuesday, May 6, 2:00 - 3:30 PM

Sustaining Food and Farm Investment Amid Federal Funding Shifts
Tuesday, June 24, 2:00 - 3:30 PM

Revitalizing Communities Through Food Systems Redevelopment
Tuesday, September 30, 2:00 - 3:30 PM

Evaluating Success: Exploring Key Partnerships and Frameworks for Food Systems Financing
Tuesday, November 25, 2:00 - 3:30 PM

Managing Director, CDFA Advisory Services
Council of Development Finance Agencies

Fawn Zimmerman is Managing Director of CDFA Advisory Services at the Council of Development Finance Agencies (CDFA). In her role, Fawn assists development finance agencies nationwide with strategic planning, finance program development, grant writing assistance, and development finance education and training. She also leads initiatives to enhance capital access for underserved communities. Fawn oversees programming aimed at increasing funding for underserved small businesses and developing culturally relevant programs to boost investment in underserved farmers and ranchers.

Fawn holds a Bachelor of Arts with honors in Communication from The Ohio State University and has pursued postgraduate studies at Ohio University. Her career is deeply intertwined with her philanthropic goals, and she is committed to leveraging her creative, academic, and professional experiences to drive positive changes in the development finance sector.