Kirchner Food Fellowship announces International Expansion of Program and Opening of Application Period
Birmingham, Alabama and San Cristóbal, Gto., Mexico – 02 March 2017 – Kirchner Impact Foundation is pleased to announce the 2017-18 Kirchner Food Fellowship, one of the world’s most innovative capital markets initiatives, will be focused on Central Mexico. In collaboration with Centro Fox the program will be based at the Presidential Library in Guanajuato, Mexico and will bring needed agricultural impact investment capital and vital venture investment training to the region.
The Fellowship has begun to recruit the Fellows for this new Cohort. Candidates must be enrolled in university in Mexico, Canada or the United States and have roots in, or connections to, the region. They must be fully bilingual, self-motivated, hard-working and possess a passion for investing in promising early-stage, for-profit, socially-responsible agricultural companies that will ultimately benefit Central Mexico. To learn more or to apply click here.
“As the program enters its fifth year it is proving the ability to assemble high-functioning investment teams from a large pool of candidates in a matter of months,” stated Steve Dauphin, Director of Kirchner Food Fellowship. “Using the techniques we have developed over the previous years, along with the support of the Kirchner Group and Centro Fox networks, this new team will be able to invest wisely on a fully discretionary basis at a fraction of the cost of traditional fund structures.”
“The Kirchner Food Fellowship is the perfect complement to the ongoing entrepreneurial efforts of Centro Fox,” added President Vicente Fox. “I am pleased to be working closely with Kirchner Group and the Kirchner Food Fellowship program on this important initiative.”
“The international expansion of this program, designed to enable students to work together in addressing the common goal of global food security through impact investing, is very important to me,” stated W.B. (Bud) Kirchner, Founder and CEO of Kirchner Group. “The issues and challenges our Fellows will work to address in Mexico are similar to issues in many developing economies. Their work ultimately will be beneficial to the broader global community.”
The Kirchner Food Fellowship is made possible by the support of Kirchner Group, a traditional merchant bank that provides advisory, operational and transactional support to small and medium sized businesses as well as asset management services. Kirchner has a long history working with agriculture and food companies along with a strong ethos of earning and returning. The Fellowship is sponsored as part of its returning initiatives and capitalizes on Kirchner’s unprecedented track record and network in the agtech sector.
The Kirchner Food Fellowship is proud to be an investor in innovative businesses such as Lucky Iron Fish, a safe, cost-effective, easy-to-use alternative to pills for those suffering from iron deficiency. Green Zebra Grocery, a socially responsible convenience store chain focused on healthy and local options for customers. Till Mobile, a software company using SMS to address supply chain management deficiencies between small producers and large retailers and Kuli Kuli a consumer packaged goods company selling healthy food products made with moringa sourced primarily from small holder farmers in Africa and central America.
Kirchner Food Fellowship
The Kirchner Food Fellowship, a Kirchner Impact Foundation initiative, is an innovative, hands-on impact investment program that harnesses the power of millennials to find, fund and assist promising socially responsible agricultural businesses. The program provides capital and unprecedented hands on training in capital allocation for university students. The program applies a problem-based learning and solutions approach with the goal to enhance capital efficiency, lessen deployment costs, shorten time frames and increase the likelihood of investment success. www.fundthefood.com
Steve Dauphin
Director
Kirchner Food Fellowship
205.602.9845
sdauphin@kirchnerimpact.com
Kirchner Group
Kirchner Group was founded in 1985 on two fundamental premises: every businesses can be improved and every business should improve the world. Today, the firm is a values-based corporate ecosystem, committed to the integration of “earning and returning”.
The firm provides advisory and operational services, enterprise development and transactional support to companies, investors and institutions through a proprietary approach that dovetails domain and process expertise. Kirchner Group also manages assets for family offices and some of the world’s largest insurance companies, commercial banks and institutional investors. www.kirchnergroup.com
Blair Kirchner
Managing Director & Co-Head of Impact Activities
Kirchner Group
902.817.2405
bgkirchner@kirchnergroup.com
Centro Fox
Centro Fox a unique and universal non-profit, was founded in 2006 by former President of Mexico Vicente Fox and his wife, Marta Sahagún de Fox. Centro Fox fosters leadership through a multi-angled vision of its: academic, information research, and cultural views. Our mission is to propel leadership in all of those who visit us and perform any of the activities developed by any of the four strategic areas of Centro Fox, and to disseminate ideas which seek to attain a better world for all by hosting events and programs with world leaders. www.centrofox.org.mx/en