The extensive experience of Nutrition Capital Network's principals ensures a measured perspective not only on individual companies but also the industry at large and the trends and dynamics that impact valuations, forecasts and growth trajectories.

Grant Ferrier
Grant Ferrier is a Principal of Nutrition Capital Network and Co-Chair of NCN III, our Fall 2008 Investor Meeting in San Francisco. Grant co-founded Nutrition Business Journal in 1996, serving as Publisher and Editor-in-Chief for more than a decade. NBJ's segmentation and quantification of the nutrition industry has been cited by wide range of government and private sources, including the industry’s leading companies, Wall Street investment banking firms and the U.S. Food & Drug Administration. Grant is also President and CEO of Environmental Business International Inc., a market research and consulting firm, and the publisher of Climate Change Business Journal and founder and publisher of Environmental Business Journal for more than 15 years. He has served as a lead consultant or principal advisor on proprietary consulting, research and strategy development assignments in the both the nutrition and environmental industries, in addition to acting as a third-party advisor in several M&A transactions. Grant has represented nutrition and environmental industry interests in many government and business forums, testifying before the three Congressional Subcommittees and serving on advisory committees for the United Nations, OECD, the U.S. EPA and the U.S. Dept. of Commerce. Grant has degrees in Mechanical Engineering and Conservation & Resource Studies from the University of California, Berkeley.

Thomas D. Aarts
Thomas D. Aarts is a Principal of Nutrition Capital Network and Co-Chair of NCN III, our Fall 2008 Investor Meeting in San Francisco. Tom is Managing Director of Nutrition Business Advisors LLC, a strategic advisory firm focused on the nutrition industry. He co-founded Nutrition Business Journal (NBJ)—the “journal of record” for strategic information and market intelligence in the nutrition industry—and is also Founder and Co-Chair of the NBJ/Newport Summit, the premier executive retreat for the nutrition industry. Prior to this Tom was a Founding Partner of Health Business Partners, an investment banking and consulting firm serving the natural products industry. Tom has been a keynote speaker and chairperson at many of the nutrition industry’s leading conferences. He has more than 20 years’ experience in management consulting, M&A transactions, investment analysis and market research. Tom has advised many leading nutrition industry companies on their strategy and direction, including GNC, Rexall, Nestle, Bayer, and Cargill. He received a BA from Colgate University and an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

Mike Dovbish
Mike Dovbish is Executive Director of Nutrition Capital Network, providing strategic guidance and preparing participating companies for NCN Conferences.  Mike is also responsible for operations and building the investor network community. He also runs the Nutrition Capital Network’s Investment Camp, providing strategic guidance and preparing participating companies for their slide presentations at NCN’s Investor Meetings. Mike was previously an Associate with Health Business Partners (HBP), an investment banking and consulting firm specializing in the natural products industry. Mike participated in several buy-side engagements and was also responsible for managing the Healthy Products Capital Forum, a serial online event held by HBP and Natural Products Consulting, which matched natural products companies seeking capital with investor groups with an interest in health and wellness. Prior to joining HBP, Mike was a senior consultant at PriceWaterhouseCoopers, advising Fortune 500 media and consumer products companies, and a research analyst at Photonics Private Capital, a venture capital firm associated with Boston University. Mike is also a project consultant for Organic Monitor. He received a BA degree in Political Science from the University of California, Irvine and an MBA from Boston University. Mike can be reached at mdovbish@nutritioncapital.com.

Steve Allen
Steve Allen is Chairman of the Screening Committee for NCN Investor Meetings. Steve is Vice-President, New Ventures for Nestlé based in Glendale, Calif. He has been in the food industry for over twenty years. He gained experience working in Africa, the Middle East, the Far East and Switzerland. Prior to moving to the United States he was head of the Nutrition Division of Nestlé in Canada. He has had functional responsibility for marketing and sales in his career as well as general management. Steve was born in England and has an undergraduate degree from the University of Leeds and a Master’s from the University of London. His current responsibilities are with the venture capital activities of Nestlé and the investments that Nestlé has made in start-up companies in the U.S. and Canada. Nestlé is the # 1 food company in the world with sales over $70 billion. The company has a dominant position in Nutritional Products and is an acknowledged leader in Research and Development.

Greg Horn
Greg Horn has dedicated his career to building brands that enhance healthy living. Greg is an Operating Advisor with Pegasus Capital Advisors, a middle-market private equity firm with a focus on bringing growth capital to sustainable companies. He is also a co-founder of Specialty Nutrition Group, Inc., a leading innovator in nutrition brand building from concept through execution. He is former turnaround President and CEO of Garden of Life, Inc. and co-founder of New Brands, Inc. and Celsius, Inc., a leading functional beverage company for which he also serves as a Director. Prior to becoming a nutrition entrepreneur, Greg was Chief Executive Officer of General Nutrition Centers (GNC), where he was instrumental in building the GNC brand and expanding the company from $400 million to $1.5 billion in revenues. When GNC was acquired by Royal Numico in 1999, he became chairman of Royal Numico’s North American Executive Committee, overseeing the company’s $2.5 billion specialty retail, mass market, and direct selling operations on the continent. Greg is an advocate of practical solutions for personal health and environmental sustainability and the author of Living Green: A Practical Guide to Simple Sustainability (Freedom Press, 2006). He holds an MBA from UCLA and a BA (summa cum laude, phi beta kappa) from the University of Redlands.

Lara Burns
Lara Burns (formerly Christenson) specializes in the Natural Products Industry, focusing on strategic and business insights. During her career with SPINS, a market research and consulting firm for the Natural Products Industry, she worked with traditional CPG companies as well as with independent Natural Products companies’ on buy/build strategies, trade management, opportunity assessment, category management and other analytics. Prior to SPINS, Lara was a Senior Corporate Finance Analyst within the Investment Banking industry with experience in capital raising in the public and private markets. Lara completed her MBA from the Univ. of San Francisco in 2006, emphasizing Marketing and Finance. Affiliations: Nutrition Capital Networks Advisor, Net Impact Member, USF Alumni Association.

Matthew Roberts
Matthew Roberts works in Nestlé’s Acquisitions & Business Development group with a focus on business utilization of food & life science technologies that add value by enhancing animal and human health & well-being. He is involved in identifying target companies, completing value-added transactions, and working with companies to achieve growth post-transaction. He has served on the Board of Vet Centric and a member of the Nestle Purina Pet Care’s Global Strategic Business Unit. As a Ph.D. research scientist, he managed laboratories focused on life science research, bioanalytical methods development, genomics, proteomics, and nutritional discovery and is the author of 34 peer-reviewed scientific publications, 11 professional publications, 5 patents, and the editor on two scientific books.