Joshua Humphreys is president of Croatan Institute, where he also directs the Soil Wealth program. An authority on conservation finance and resilient land stewardship, Dr. Humphreys has taught at Harvard, Princeton, and NYU, and served as a Fulbright Scholar in Paris, Aspen Environment Forum Scholar, associate fellow of the Rutgers Center for Historical Analysis, scholar-in-residence at Rockefeller University, and fellow at Tellus Institute. He sits on the board of Rodale Institute’s Southeast Organic Center and the Executive Committee of the Philadelphia Society for Promoting Agriculture. He also operates Pont Reading Farm and helped found Piedmont Agrarian Collaborative in central NC.

Friendly Vang-Johnson grew up in the Frogtown neighborhood and farming in the Twin Cities. She holds a masters degree in public policy from the Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs. She founded Friendly Hmong Farms, a social enterprise business that supports local Hmong and other Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) farmers by acting as a produce broker, public policy advocate, microfinancer, and technical assistance provider. Friendly also co-founded the PNW BIPOC Farmland Trust, a farmland trust led by and for BIPOC farmers. Through her efforts, Friendly has generated $1 million+ sales to BIPOC farmers, and raised more than $4 million for BIPOC farmers to buy and hold farmland in trust. She currently serves as the MN Farmers’ Market Association Director of Government Affairs and a MN Department of Agriculture Farm Advocate.  Friendly considers her work and social enterprise an exercise in community solidarity and calls in and on everyone to join the movement for racial justice, food sovereignty, and land reparations. 

Dawn E. “Dawnee” LeBeau is a member of the Oóhenuŋpa Itázipačola Tetoŋwaŋ bands of the Lakota Nation. She resides on the Cheyenne River Lakota Nation in South Dakota with her Tios’paye (family). Dawn E. has been with the Akiptan team as the Program Officer since June of 2021. Her role is to lead the development of Akiptan’s programs, while working intricately with
the Executive Director and program team to manage and expand the services and programs that Akiptan offers.

Reggie has been working in farm business and sustainable agriculture development for 30 years. He serves as the CEO of California FarmLink where he facilitated the organization’s emergence as a CDFI in 2013. FarmLink has provided $85 million in financing in over 600 farm loans for operating, infrastructure and land. FarmLink conducts business resilience courses and provides technical assistance in Spanish and English for beginning, low-resource, immigrant and underserved farmers, and has helped over 3,000 farmers to find, lease or buy land. In 2021, FarmLink was approved by the California Ocean Protection Council to manage the California Fisheries Fund, and started lending to small fishing operations. Reggie’s career spans from managing an eleven-acre organic farm and directing statewide educational programs, to agricultural development projects in Sri Lanka, India and Africa.

Laura Thompson serves as Strategic Partnerships Manager at Transformational Investing in Food Systems (TIFS), which is working to unlock finance and accelerate the transition to regenerative food systems worldwide. Laura is deeply passionate about food systems change and most recently oversaw partnerships and strategy for a nonprofit engaged in food justice and innovative philanthropy. Throughout her career, Laura has focused on building community agency, with experience ranging from supporting education and health initiatives with communities in the Ecuadorian Andes and Amazon, to managing a fellowship for global women leaders, to leading advocacy campaigns for national service in the United States. She holds a BA from Muhlenberg College and an MA from New York University.