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Karen Ross was appointed Secretary of the California Department of Food and Agriculture in January of 2019 by Governor Gavin Newsom. In re-appointing Secretary Ross, Governor Newsom cited her unmatched leadership experience in agricultural issues nationally, internationally, and in California, in areas including environmental stewardship, climate change adaptation, and trade. Secretary Ross was initially appointed in 2011. She owns 800 acres of a family farm where her brother, a fourth-generation farmer, is mentoring a new farmer in growing no-till wheat and feed grains, incorporating cover crops and rotational grazing for beef production. Secretary Ross has a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and is a graduate of the Nebraska Ag Leadership Program. She has served on numerous boards and committees in California agriculture and with various academic institutions.

Éliane Ubalijoro, Ph.D. is an accomplished leader with a background in agriculture and molecular genetics, she serves on several boards and has been recognized for outstanding contributions in the areas of innovation, gender equity, and sustainable prosperity creation. Dr. Ubalijoro has been a professor of practice for public-private sector partnerships at McGill University since 2008, with research interests focusing on innovation, gender, and sustainable development for prosperity creation. Dr. Ubalijoro is a member of Rwanda’s National Science and Technology Council and Presidential Advisory Council, the Impact Advisory Board of the Global Alliance for a Sustainable Planet, the Advisory Board of the Hamburg Sustainability Conference, the Science for Africa Foundation board, and the Capitals Coalition Supervisory Board, among others. She is also a fellow of the International Science Council.

James leads the Peatland, Soil, and Agricultural Land Use planning team within the Environmental Sustainability Directorate of the Welsh Government. James has led the development of the National Peatland Action Programme since 2019. His wider team covers a wide range of evidence, policy, and technical advice including the Soil Policy Evidence Programme, the development of a Soil Policy Statement for Wales, and representing soils through the planning systems in Developments of National Significance and mineral extraction cases.

Dr. Jack Hannam is the current President of the British Society of Soil Science, and a soil scientist specializing in soil data, digital soil mapping, and soil health. Her research focuses on digital soil mapping, applications of conservation agriculture to improve soil health, developing decision support tools for planning soil and landscape decisions and the application of application of national and local scale soil data for policy and business applications. Dr. Hannam leads the LandIS team at Cranfield University, who are responsible for the national soil data for England and Wales. She is also vice chair of the International Union of Soil Science (IUSS) Division 1: Soil in Space and Time.

María Elena was born into a family of eleven children with migrant worker parents who experienced the hardships that migrant laborers suffer. María Elena earned her degree from St. Mary’s College in Moraga, California, where she became involved in the Chicano Movement. She entered the labor movement as an organizer for the International Ladies Garment Workers Union and earned a law degree from the People’s College of Law. María Elena has been the Executive Vice President of UNITE-HERE International and the first woman Secretary-Treasurer of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO, the second-largest labor council in the country. She has also served on the National AFL-CIO Executive Council, the California State Coastal Commission, the Democratic National Committee as Vice Chair, and the Barack Obama Presidential Campaign as National Co-Chair.

Ms. McClain-Hill is an active attorney. She was elected President of the Board of Water and Power Commissioners in July of 2020 after serving as Board Vice President since September of 2018. In her work as a highly regarded and widely respected attorney, Ms. McClain-Hill oversees and manages complex legal and public policy issues for clients as managing director of Strategic Counsel PLC. She is lauded as an astute and skillful public policy strategist with an outstanding record of service and accomplishment on a significant array of public-sector and non-profit boards and commissions. Ms. McClain-Hill previously served for two years as a mayoral appointee on the City of Los Angeles Board of Police Commissioners beginning in August 2016. Over the past three decades, she was appointed to serve on the City’s Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA), California Coastal Commission, California Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC), CalEPA Environmental Justice Advisory Working Group, and Los Angeles City Small and Local Business Advisory Commission.