Dr. Mark Lyons, President and CEO, Alltech
Dr. Mark Lyons grew up in the Alltech business, having travelled with his father and Alltech’s founder, Dr. Pearse Lyons, from a young age to visit customers. With experience working in all regions and nearly all departments — from palletizing bags in production to researching in the lab — he has a deep and uniquely personal knowledge of the company.
Based on Alltech’s belief that agriculture has the greatest potential to shape our world’s future, he launched the Working Together for a Planet of Plenty™ vision in 2019. He has called for collaboration to improve nutrition, human and animal well-being, and the preservation of natural resources. He has spearheaded many critical projects, including simultaneously managing a biorefinery project in Kentucky, the establishment of a plant in Serbia and the creation of Alltech’s flagship yeast production facility in São Pedro, Brazil. He also spent nearly four years in Mexico rebuilding the company’s solid-state fermentation plant in Serdán, which is one of the largest of its kind in the world.
Dr. Frank Mitloehner, UC Davis, California
Dr. Frank Mitloehner is a professor and air quality specialist in cooperative extension in the Department of Animal Science at UC Davis. As such, he shares his knowledge and research, both domestically and abroad, with students, scientists, farmers and ranchers, policymakers, and the public at large. Frank is also director of the CLEAR Center, which has two cores – research and communications. The CLEAR Center brings clarity to the intersection of animal agriculture and the environment, helping our global community understand the environmental and human health impacts of livestock, so we can make informed decisions about the foods we eat and while reducing environmental impacts.
Frank is committed to making a difference for generations to come. He is passionate about understanding and mitigating air emissions from livestock operations, as well as studying the implications of these emissions on the health of farmworkers and neighbouring communities. In addition, he is focusing on the food production challenge that will become a global issue as the world’s population grows to nearly 10 billion by 2050.
Timothy P Robinson, Senior Livestock Policy Officer, FAO, United Nations
Timothy Robinson is Senior Livestock Policy Officer with FAO’s Animal Production and Health Division. He works on sustainable livestock systems with a focus on climate and natural resource use.
Returning to FAO in 2017, Timothy had spent the previous four years working as a Principal Scientist at the International Livestock Research Institute in Nairobi, Kenya, where he was involved in a number of projects and programmes — latterly acting as focal point for antimicrobial resistance work carried out by the institute, estimating antimicrobial consumption in the livestock sector and exploring the links between this and the growing problem of antimicrobial resistance in public health.
Trained originally as a biologist at the University of Oxford, he carried out his Ph.D. research at the University of Reading in spatial ecology. He has thirty years of post-doctoral experience working in the field of spatial analysis in relation to agriculture, food security and poverty alleviation. During this time, he has had residential contracts in Kenya and Zambia and has worked within the United Nations, the CGIAR system, UK universities and government departments.
Cathal McCormack, Country Manager, Alltech Ireland
Cathal McCormack joined Alltech in 2007 as regional sales manager and now holds the position of country manager for Ireland. In this role, he oversees all of Ireland’s sales and marketing activities.
McCormack is very active within the agriculture industry in Ireland and is currently a member of the Irish Grassland Association council. In the past, he served on the Irish Cattle Breeding Federation, where he was part of the Beef Economic Index Implementation Committee. This committee led to the development of the Terminal and Replacement Indexes for beef cattle in Ireland. He also served on the Irish Angus Cattle Society Council.
Before joining Alltech, McCormack held the training and development officer position with Macra na Feirme, a voluntary, rural youth organization in Ireland. He was responsible for the development of the organization in Ireland's northeast region.
He received a bachelor's degree in business from Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology in 2001 and has since gained a master's degree in business management from University College Dublin Michael Smurfit Business School.
A well-known face in pedigree cattle breeding circles, the McCormack family is synonymous throughout Ireland and the UK with breeding top-quality pedigree Angus cattle since the 1950s.
Emma Swan, Alltech Ireland
Emma Swan, Alltech Ireland, assists dairy and beef farmers in meeting their performance goals. Prior to joining Alltech in 2019, Emma completed a Walsh Fellow Masters in Agricultural Innovation Support with Teagasc and UCD, where she worked closely in the agricultural advisory sector. Today, she is based at the European Headquarters in Dunboyne, Co. Meath, Ireland. Emma received a bachelor’s degree in agricultural science from Waterford Institute of Technology in 2017.
Dr. Stephen Ross, E-CO2
Stephen began a career in animal science with five years working at the SRUC Dairy Research Centre in Scotland. With a background in chemistry and environmental science, his work has largely focussed on greenhouse gas emissions in different sectors, completing a PhD in Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of dairy systems with the University of Edinburgh in 2014. Subsequently, spending three years working in LCA modelling of engineering systems at the MIT International Design Centre in Singapore, he returned to agriculture and joined Alltech in 2018.
Working for Alltech E-CO2, Stephen’s principal role is in developing and maintaining LCA models for commercial environmental footprinting across the range of agricultural production systems. This work covers a core of seven major livestock species as well as cropping and feed mill production. As sustainability has grown to become an ever-larger part of the industry consciousness, his role has expanded into providing assistance to various projects, partners and clients in the wide-ranging arena of agricultural sustainability.
Thomas Hubert, The Currency
Thomas Hubert is Senior Correspondent with The Currency, writing on business, agriculture, food and the environment.
Thomas Hubert has an MA in political science from Sciences Po, Paris and studied journalism at Institut Pratique de Journalisme in Paris and Dublin City University.
His career focused on covering international business, agriculture, food and the environment started with freelance reporting for French trade magazines, the 24-hour news channel France 24, the Irish Farmers Journal, The Sunday Business Post and Reuters.
He also contributed writing and editing work for non-profit organisations such as the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty and the Centre for International Forestry Research.
Following a stint as a correspondent for the BBC World Service in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Thomas moved to Ireland permanently in 2015 and joined the Irish Farmers Journal as digital editor, then news correspondent, leading the publication’s online development and its coverage of climate change.
He divides his time between Dublin and Oldcastle, Co. Meath, where he is a partner in a family snail farm.
Matthew Smith, Vice President, Alltech
Matthew Smith served as Alltech’s vice president of Asia-Pacific from 2011–2019. Working in the feed industry for more than 27 years — 22 of which have been with Alltech — Smith has travelled extensively in Asia, Europe and North America.
Smith relocated from the U.K. to become the general manager of Alltech New Zealand in 2009 before being promoted to his regional role. In 2018, Smith returned to live in the U.K., taking responsibility for Alltech E-CO2, the global rumen function platform and Alltech U.K. He also continues to oversee parts of Alltech’s Asia-Pacific network.
Smith began his working career on a dairy farm in the U.K. before receiving a business law degree from Coventry University and then a solicitor’s final qualification from the College of Law, Chester.
Prof. Frank O’Mara, Director of Research, Teagasc
Prof. Frank O’Mara is the Director of Research at Teagasc, with responsibility for leading the research programme that covers all aspects of agri-food research from soils to consumers. His role involves setting priorities, identifying opportunities and securing resources, and includes liaison with industry stakeholders, policymakers, other agencies and research institutes and universities. He also contributes to various national and EU committees and bodies, review panels and scientific advisory boards and became President of the Animal Task Force in 2020. This is a public-private partnership of research organisations and farmer and industry organisations, working together on a sustainable and competitive European livestock production sector. He was appointed Adjunct Professor in UCD in 2017.
Dr. Elizabeth Magowan, Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute (AFBI)
Dr. Elizabeth Magowan completed a Ph.D. in dairy nutrition from Queens University, Belfast (with DARD Science Service and ARINI) in 2004 and joined AFBI as a pig research scientist in 2003. Elizabeth developed the AFBI pig research programme until April 2017, after which she took up the post of Director of Sustainable Agri-Food Sciences Division. Elizabeth’s early research focused on optimising pig production performance through management and nutritional strategies whilst reducing environmental impact. Elizabeth worked extensively on industry/academic collaborative studies and presented her work across the UK and at international conferences as well as publications in journals. Elizabeth was awarded the Sir John Hammond Award in 2017, from the British Society of Animal Science, in recognition of her scientific work in collaboration with industry. Key achievements for Elizabeth include performing the scientific coordinator of a multi-million-euro EU FP7 project ECO FCE, leading AFBI’s membership of the UK Centre of Excellence for Livestock (CIEL) as well as undertaking the role of interim director of CIEL in its formative months and currently being a Vice President of BSAS. Elizabeth’s current role involves significant coordination of AFBI’s science in the area of sustainable agri-food production as well as leading important AFBI initiatives, for example, the development of a Strategic Science Framework to 2030 and important alliances and partnerships such as with QUB and CAFRE.
Tom Arnold, Chair of the Irish 2030 Agri-Food Strategy Committee
Tom Arnold currently serves as Chair of the Irish 2030 Agri-Food Strategy Committee; the Irish Government’s Special Envoy for Food Systems; Member of the Champions Network for the UN Food Systems Summit (FSS); Chair, EU Commission’s High Level Expert Group to assess the Need for an International Platform for Food Systems Science (IPFSS); Member, Global Panel on Agriculture and Food Systems for Nutrition (GloPan); Member, Board of Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN); Member, Malabo Montpellier Panel. He has previously served as Coordinator, Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) Movement; Director General, Institute of International and European Affairs (IIEA); Chair, Irish Constitutional Convention; Chief Executive, Concern Worldwide; Chief Economist and Assistant Secretary General, Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine; Administrator, EU Commission. His primary degree is in agricultural economics from University College Dublin (UCD).
