Today we’d like to introduce you to Andrew Howell.
Andrew, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
I grew up in Northern Virginia right outside of DC and I went to college at Jacksonville University to play golf. After graduation, I decided to go straight through to do my MBA.
Entrepreneurship and helping companies grow have always been strong interests of mine, and after completing my MBA at Rollins College in 2012, I made the move to Boston to pursue my career. I initially started in an internship with a small private equity firm and then moving on to an M&A role within a larger company. In 2015, I had the opportunity to join Ceres Partners, an agriculture investment firm.
Ceres Partners was intriguing to me due to the fact that they exclusively focus on food & agriculture. On top of being one of the most under-invested sectors, we will not be able to feed the world’s population as it continues to grow, and so the need to create sustainable food and agriculture solutions is more pertinent than ever.
My responsibilities within Ceres Partners have grown to not only include sourcing, deal work, and portfolio management but also helping raise our new $100 Million dollars Sustainable Food & Agriculture private equity fund. The position has also afforded me a great deal of travel as well, which has been rewarding both from a professional and personal perspective.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
Graduating in 2012 was a struggle for many of us, and I was no exception. Like many, I had in my mind that I would immediately fall into a position within my preferred field. I had actually taken a bit of a non-traditional route – most people get their college degree, work for a bit and then go for an MBA, where I went straight for my MBA after college.
This worked against me for an initially in combination with the fact that I moved to Boston where some of the best schools in the world are located and I was from a smaller school in Florida. With patience, hard work, and some good timing, I was fortunate to have found opportunities to learn and grow within several types of companies along the way.
I’ve come to find along the way that everyone has a unique backstory of how they came to be in the position they are now, and that ultimately gives many of them a broader perspective that can be extremely helpful in business.
We’d love to hear more about your business.
Ceres Partners focuses exclusively on food and agriculture. Ceres Partners has two investment strategies: Ceres Farms, a $750M+ U.S. farmland investment fund, and Ceres private equity, which invests growth equity in emerging operating businesses in food and agriculture.
I am fortune that in my role as Vice President I get to do a variety of different things on a daily basis including; deal sourcing, financial modeling, market research, diligence, managing portfolio companies, and fundraising. Over the last 3 years, I have developed specialties in indoor farming and aquaculture.
Indoor farming utilizes new technologies to grow a variety of crops as efficiently as possible and aquaculture, or fish farming helps meet the growth of demand of seafood worldwide because we can’t pull any more fish out of the oceans than we already do.
I am proud that we are able to invest our partner’s money in businesses that have tremendous potential to be both beneficial financially, but that also have a strong positive impact on the environment and the world.
What were you like growing up?
I grew up in Northern Virginia in a large close-knit family. I was a pretty easy going kid and always liked to keep the peace and get along with everyone if I could. Growing up I always loved being around people and be as social as possible, which still holds true today.
I played pretty much every sport I could growing up. Each year was some combination of soccer, baseball, basketball, and golf. As I got into junior high, I realized that my true passion was golf. I played as much as I could and after a while, the other sports fell off.
I was fortunate enough to play in golf events all around the country, which led to playing throughout high school, and ultimately let me accomplish my dream of playing NCAA Division 1 golf in college. Golf is still an important part of my life and luckily it is something I can continue to do throughout the rest of my life.
Contact Info:
- Address: 18 Shipyard Dr. Hingham, MA Suite 3D
- Website: www.cerespartners.com
- Phone: 7034086644
- Email: ahowell@cerespartners.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/andrewrhowell/
- Other: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewrhowell/
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