Pablo Munoz Ledo

Executive Director

The evolution of the relationship between organic producers and consumers has been Pablo’s long-term drive for nearly 20 years now. Formerly the founder and leader of an integrated marketing group in Mexico City, in the early 90’s he left and started living in a small farm close by. He founded Aires de Campo (Mexican organic label) in 2001. Five years later he left the company to devote his time entirely to an NGO called Bionexos. There, his research projects lead him to extensively visit and document a great diversity of organic projects and developed commercial strategies for them.

In recent years, as a green marketing consultant, he helped large Mexican sustainable farming cooperatives and associations launch their products in European markets and developed their own overseas distribution companies. He also initiated a consumers’ food cooperative model based on the principles of direct local sourcing. Summing up the lessons learned along the way, he started a quest for a model that combined them all. The result of this work is Greenexus and the Into™ storytelling, and transparency platform: a learning and connexion tool for green producers and consumers.

John Sames

Co-Founder, COO

A Texas-born businessman with a keen eye for innovations and new ideas, John, his wife Claudia and their kids migrated to San Francisco Bay Area in a quest for holistic health approaches, local organic food and green living.

In the past, John has ventured in imports and distribution in the US and Mexico. He sees Greenexus as an opportunity to bring fairness, new efficiencies and improved practices where they are needed the most: to our green food systems.

In his practical and down-to-earth perspective, the more a project has potential for change and significant impact, the more it needs to be executed consistently, one step at a time. As one of the co-founders of the company, he is here to make this happen.

Kevin Bayuk

Lead Advisor, Organization and Strategy

Kevin Bayuk’s roots are in entrepreneurship, having spent nearly a decade starting and growing technology companies, and activating projects and organizations that regenerate healthy ecosystems and socially just and joyful environments. After immersing himself in all aspects of starting and growing companies, Kevin focused his attention on learning about and teaching eco-systemic design. Now Kevin is merging his experience in business with his experience in permaculture to help businesses care for people while enhancing the earth.

Kevin has raised millions of dollars to capitalize business operations, led teams of more than 30 employees, and can speak well to the benefits and pitfalls of raising capital and the many paths of growing a business. He loves spreadsheets and loves to dig into operating models. One investor of Kevin’s last technology company said, “Kevin oozes strategy.”

Michael Besançon

Lead Advisor, Green Markets Strategy

Michael Besançon, an entrepreneur and environmental advocate, has spent most of his career in the business of providing natural and organic foods to a population craving a healthier lifestyle. In 1970 he built, owned and operated Follow Your Heart Natural Foods in Canoga Park, CA, at that time the largest natural food store on the West Coast. The line of vegan products he developed back then is still sold in natural food stores throughout the nation.

In 1990 he established a food brokerage firm, representing vendors throughout the U.S. In 1994, Michael joined Whole Foods Market as Director of Purchasing in the Southern Pacific Region. Fourteen years later he was appointed Senior Global Vice President of Purchasing, Distribution and Marketing, position he held from 2008 until his retirement from the company in early 2012. Along those 17 years, Michael chaired Whole Foods Market’s National Green Mission Task Force, and was a Board Member for the Company’s Animal Compassion Foundation (which became the Global Animal Partnership) and the Whole Planet Foundation. He is currently CEO of he Besancon Group in Woodland Hills, CA and serves in the Board of Trustees of the Earth University Foundation and Fair Trade USA Board of Directors. Michael's sharp insights and experience are helping us shape a truly successful Direct Exchange platform.

Luis Felipe Rego

Co-Founder

Luis Felipe Rego is a designer, an innovator, an inventor. He has a mind for making things simpler and better, as stated by his award-winning packaging systems designs, a breakthrough in logistics efficiency. He is also passionate for Anthroposophy and biodynamic agriculture.

When he heard of the Direct Exchange principle, he felt deeply identified with the idea: it involved organic and biodynamic farmers, directness, balance and efficiency; many of his most cherished values. So he decided to layout the way to the foundation of Greenexus, together with John Sames and a team of seasoned experts.

Shepherd Ogden

Advisor, Communications

Shepherd Ogden is perhaps best known as founder and president of The Cook's Garden, a mail order seed and supply house in Londonderry, Vermont from 1983 until 2003. The Cook’s Garden was a early leader in the marketing of certified organic garden seeds in the United States and Canada.

Since leaving The Cook's Garden, Ogden has returned to the Mid-Atlantic region of the USA, where he grew up. There he has been working on a number of projects, including farmland preservation schemes for rapidly urbanizing areas, and food production methods in the already urbanized areas, as well as the application of organic principles to the management of public landscapes in the region. He currently serves as Agricultural Development Officer for Jefferson County, West Virginia, at the head of the Shenandoah Valley.

Lily Betjeman

Storytelling Coordination

David Lund

Advisor, Green Products Distribution, Retail Strategy

Formerly a marketing and product development director at Chiquita Brands, David led the organic banana project, among other specialty and innovation initiatives. He has served as top marketing executive in FirstGroup and other leading corporations. In recent years, David has integrated all his knowledge, experience and valuable insights as founder and President of the Columbia, SC based GrowthSpring Group, a business intelligence consultancy. Thanks to his experience in green product lines development and as a proud husband of a talented organic farmer, David has developed a particular interest in the growing dynamics of sustainable products. He has joined our board of advisors and is helping us create a strategic approach to retail, commercial intelligence, distribution and logistics partnerships for Direct Exchange.

Jaime Castro

Advisor, Tropical Production, International Trade

As founder and leader of the largest organic agriculture certification body in Peru and other countries in Central and South America, also working with sustainable forestry and aquaculture projects, Jaime gained an incredibly rich and objective perspective on the Region and developed excellent relationships with great farmers. He is also an expert in international trade and logistics.

After leaving his certification ventures, Jaime has been promoting organic and biodynamic agriculture in Peru, working closely with some of the region's largest farmers, as well as some of the most promising new projects. Jaime's efforts are driven by new ways to achieve sustainable and socially fair formulas for small and medium farms. So he became one of Greenexus co-founders and is helping us design a new approach to international green products value chains.

Rewi Illsley

Co-Founder, Production

The son of an American family of agricultural experts who migrated to Michoacan, Mexico, back in the 1930’s, Rewi started early in Agribusiness. Over 20 years ago he ventured organic fruit exports to US, Canada and European countries. He himself once produced and exported organic avocados. For years, he was the technical director for Fair Trade South America.

He has developed one of the largest networks of fruit and fresh produce organic farmers in Mexico, for whom he created a number of innovative social programs.

A seasoned expert and well-aware of the limitations of today’s international organic markets, he has been teaming-up with Pablo Muñoz Ledo in a quest for a new model and green production paradigm.

Hector Bonilla

Co-Founder and Advisor,

Sustainable Wood and Agroforestry

Formerly a consultant for The Boston Consulting Group, where he specialized on strategies for the construction sector in Mexico and the world, Hector founded Proteak, the first green company to go public in Mexico's stock exchange.

Proteak is a Mexico-based renewable tropical forestry company, one of the largest in the Americas. The company sells conflict-free plantation teak wood products. Teak comes from reclaimed ranch lands along Mexico's Pacific coast, which helps bypass the high financial, environmental, and human costs associated with extracting teak wood from Southeast Asia. Since its inception in 1999, the company has planted more than 14,000 acres of teak plantations in Mexico, Costa Rica and Colombia. Proteak was also the first FSC-certified company in Mexico.

Despite his clear real economy extraction, Hector admits that stories carry the essence of the value of many green products. He is bringing to the Greenexus think tank powerful insights on how this platform can serve ecoforestry and FSC wood markets.

Our Core

We believe in Life. We are aware of vital links, especially those that are subtle, and frequently missed. We strive for mutual nourishment, balance, diversity and care. We feel that a great deal of pain, suffering and destruction comes from ignorance, disconnection and anonymity. In response, we tell stories of life and hope, of green victories, of joy. We spread awareness and connect people, especially producers and consumers, in a relationship we believe to be the most vital and ancient of all human interactions. We believe change is possible and a deep global transformation is necessary. It all starts with the power of one, followed by networking and cooperation. We love to see how the number of people that feel like us is growing so fast. It energizes us, it inspires us. We humbly bring Into™, our grain of sand, to this amazing moment of collective awakening.