Meet the Growers Edge Leadership Team

Matt Hansen

Chief Executive Officer

Matt Hansen is the Chief Executive Officer at Growers Edge. With 25 years of experience in investments, financial services, and private equity firms, Matt is a seasoned professional in the global financial landscape. His expertise has been built through investing in, developing and creating financial service platforms. Matt's experience is marked by his tenures on the Board of Director positions within regulated financial service entities, coupled with strategic roles in senior operations for various financial services portfolio companies. His career has been marked by a commitment to innovation, evident in the development of new product platforms and capabilities that reshaped and revitalized operating company performance. Matt grew up in Houston, Texas, but having lived in Australia, Vienna, Chicago, Minneapolis, Austin, Oxford, London, and New York, he has been sure to take a bit of the culture with him from the places he’s been, and that is reflected in his diverse interests and hobbies. Matt is active and enjoys surfing, snowboarding, sailing, waterskiing, and is currently on a cricket team as a batsman and bowler! Matt also enjoys keeping his mind fresh through hot yoga, live music, book clubs, and church activities.

Chris Peacock

Chief Product & Strategy Officer

Chris Peacock is the Chief Product and Strategy Officer at Growers Edge. Chris is a seasoned entrepreneur focused on Climate, Water, Data, and SaaS solutions. As founder and CEO of Agcor (acquired by Growers Edge in 2024), Chris leads a platform that provides climate analytics and risk management tools to support the agricultural economy. His previous roles include VP at FATHOM, a pioneer in smart water solutions, and founder of the Water Innovation Project. Chris is passionate about sustainability, innovation, and building resilient futures amid climate change.

Colin McDonough

Chief Financial Officer

Colin McDonough is Chief Financial Officer at Growers Edge. With 16 years of experience spanning both start-ups and established corporations, Colin is a skilled professional with notable experience as CFO for multiple growth-stage companies along with a substantial background at investment managers and investment banks. He has held tenure with Merrill Lynch, UBS, News Corp and multiple growth-stage companies and investment managers. He holds an MBA from Columbia University and a BA from Princeton University. Colin’s experience includes building out financial and business operations for technology companies and overseeing investments in the industrial, agriculture and energy sectors. His career is decidedly focused on growth and innovation with a passion for helping create successful organizations.

Bob Armour

Chief Marketing Officer

Bob Armour is Chief Marketing Officer at Growers Edge. With over 25 years of experience at high-growth, entrepreneurial, mission-driven technology companies, Bob is a seasoned marketing leader with a proven track record of driving growth, brand awareness, and innovation across a wide range of financial companies. Prior to joining Growers Edge, Bob was the Chief Marketing Officer at M1, an innovative self-directed wealth building platform, for four years where he helped grow client assets under management by over 10x, to more than $8 billion from $800 million. He also was CMO at leading residential mortgage company Guaranteed Rate where he helped launch and bring to market its first-of-a-kind digital mortgage. Bob got his BA in economics from the University of Notre Dame, his MBA from Northwestern University's Kellogg Graduate School of Management, and his accent from the suburbs of Boston. He’s a huge fan of ‘80s alternative music, especially one-hit wonders, and he considers himself a cultured connoisseur of Greek yogurt.

Ahraz Husain

Chief Commercial Officer

As Chief Commercial Officer at Growers Edge, Ahraz Husain works closely with agricultural retailers and manufacturers to develop financial products that help farmers confidently choose the right crop inputs and improve their profitability. With a background as the company's former Chief Innovation Officer, Ahraz brings an innovation-first mindset to commercial strategy, accelerating the feedback-to-improvement cycle on existing products while partnering directly with customers to create tailored solutions for their unique challenges. Since joining the company in 2022, Ahraz has progressively taken on broader responsibilities—from overseeing data science efforts to leading cross-functional product and engineering teams. Under his leadership, Growers Edge has launched impactful financial products that help customers boost profitability, streamline operations, and reduce risk. Ahraz brings a track record of building and scaling transformative technologies. Prior to Growers Edge, he played pivotal roles in strategy, digital transformation, and enterprise-level analytics initiatives within the agriculture industry. He is deeply committed to shaping a more sustainable and financially resilient future for American agriculture by fostering collaboration across the industry’s value chain.

Mary Johnson

Chief People Officer

Mary Johnson is the Chief People Officer at Growers Edge, bringing over six years of experience in People Operations leadership. As Chief People Officer at Growers Edge, Mary is dedicated to championing employee experience and engagement initiatives that drive organization success and foster a culture of excellence and innovation. Her approach centers on placing people at the heart of every strategic initiative, creating an environment where they are not just valued, but truly empowered to thrive. Whether organizing team building activities, volunteer initiatives or wellness programs, Mary strives to create a supportive ecosystem within the workplace where employees feel valued and appreciated. Mary’s dynamic skillset includes the ability to develop and execute people operations initiatives that align with company goals and objectives, proficient communication at all levels of the organization, a keen ability to listen and empathize with the needs of all team members, talent acquisition strategy development designed to attract, hire and retain top talent, leading organizational change initiatives and managing companywide transitions, performance management, employee relations, and HR compliance expertise. Outside of work, Mary enjoys spending time with her husband and two daughters, baking sweet treats, going for long walks, listening to audiobooks and keeping up on all the current fashion and home décor trends.

Brian Weis

Managing Director, Mortgage

Brian Weis is a seasoned leader with over 25 years of experience in the mortgage industry. He currently serves as the Managing Director of the Mortgage Division at Growers Edge. His career includes significant tenures at Bank of America, Guaranteed Rate, and Fairway Independent Mortgage Corporation, where he played a key role in the industry's shift toward digital efficiency. Brian's expertise spans various roles, from Loan Officer, Regional Manager, and National Director of Business Development, demonstrating his ability to build and lead high-performing teams. With a passion for enhancing client experiences & promoting profitable business, he is now focused on revolutionizing agricultural technology and modern financing at Growers Edge. He aimes to provide growers with innovative financial solutions and a fast, smooth process. These financial solutions will improve profitability and give growers the financial flexibility they need. In addition to his professional achievements, Brian is an active community member who values personal connections. He enjoys spending time with his wife, two kids, and two dogs. He also pursues interests in skeet shooting, golf, and travel.

Archie Burgess

Cibus Capital

Archie is an Investment Director dedicated to Growth Equity investments. Prior to Cibus Capital, Archie was an investment banking associate at Bank of America Merrill Lynch in London where he worked as part of the Industrials Group. Archie holds a Master’s degree in Chemistry from the University of Oxford.

Eric Helfgott

Lowercarbon Capital

Eric is a Principal at Lowercarbon Capital, where he empowers exceptional people to build game-changing climate technology. Eric gravitates towards climate solutions that take serious capital and time to scale, including synthetic biology, CO2 valorization, and nuclear fusion. He sees solving climate change as the defining challenge — and in fifty years, the defining achievement — of our century. Before joining Lowercarbon, Eric was a Civil and Environmental Engineering master’s student at Stanford University focused on nailing the techno-economics and scale-up of biological solutions in food and agriculture and CO2 electrocatalysis. During his master’s, Eric was a summer investor at G2 Venture Partners and independently advised early-stage biotech and agriculture start-ups. Prior to getting his master’s, Eric worked at McKinsey & Company. There he helped biotech companies perfect their product launches, worked with investor-owned utilities to decarbonize their energy assets, and externed at climate unicorn Arcadia. His passion for climate tech began when he studied Bioengineering and Finance as a dual-degree student in the Jerome Fisher Program in Management & Technology at the University of Pennsylvania. Eric found his true calling outside of the hours he spent pipetting, when he handily won an electricity bidding simulation in a clean energy class (the prize for which was…an Enron mug). As a born-and-raised New Yorker growing up around too few trees and too much income inequality, Eric’s climate journey started early. He first took action as a teenager, launching a community agriculture program to bring farm-grown foods to the city. Eric currently lives in San Francisco and spends his spare time playing tennis, throwing slightly off-center pottery, and escaping into nature every chance he gets.

Sanjeev Krishnan

S2G Ventures

Dan Ripma

S2G Ventures

Dan Ripma is a Vice President on the Food & Agriculture Investment team. Dan’s portfolio work ranges across food as health, novel ingredients, and agriculture. His responsibilities include sourcing, analyzing new investments, financial modeling, due diligence, deal process execution, and portfolio company monitoring. Dan previously worked at Greenhill & Co. as an investment banking analyst in their global industrial practice. Dan graduated from Indiana University with a Bachelor of Science in Public Affairs with a double major in Policy Analysis and Public Financial Management.

Jeff Ubben

Inclusive Capital Partners

Jeff Ubben is a Founder, Managing Partner and Portfolio Manager of Inclusive Capital Partners, L.P. He is currently a director of The Exxon Mobil Corporation, Vistry Group Plc, and Enviva Inc., and serves on the Sustainability Council of Bayer AG. Jeff has served on more than 20 public company boards, and is a former director of Fertiglobe Plc, The AES Corporation, AppHarvest, Inc., Nikola Corporation, former chairman and director of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, Inc. and a former director of Catalina Marketing Corp., Gartner Group, Inc., Mentor Corporation, Misys plc, Sara Lee Corp., Twenty-First Century Fox Inc., Valeant Pharmaceuticals International, Willis Towers Watson plc, and several other public and private companies. Jeff is a former Founder of ValueAct Capital, where he was Chief Executive Officer, Chief Investment Officer, and Portfolio Manager. Prior to founding ValueAct Capital in 2000, Jeff was a Managing Partner at Blum Capital Partners. In addition, he serves on the boards of Duke University, the E.O. Wilson Biodiversity Foundation, the World Wildlife Fund, and the Redford Center, and formerly served as Chair of the National Board of the Posse Foundation. Jeff has a B.A. from Duke University and an M.B.A. from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.

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Meet our Leaders

Matt Hansen

Chris Peacock

Colin McDonough

Bob Armour

Ahraz Husain

Mary Johnson

Brian Weis

Archie Burgess

Eric Helfgott

Sanjeev Krishnan

Dan Ripma

Jeff Ubben

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