UAE-based Pure Harvest Smart Farms, the tech-enabled agribusiness, has announced a number of senior appointments as the company seeks to continue to expand across the Gulf region and into Asia.
The company, which has so far raised total capital in excess of $272 million, said it has hired Saqib Zia as its new chief commercial officer.
This follows a number of recent hires to Pure Harvest Smart Farms’ leadership and management teams which also includes Lucio Baron as vice president of strategy, Fatima Haveliwala as vice president of strategic finance and Gareth Wilson as head of construction.
“We are delighted to confirm these appointments and welcome a new group of talented and experienced professionals to the Pure Harvest team,” said Sky Kurtz, co-founder and CEO of Pure Harvest.
“As Pure Harvest continues its mission to transform food production by developing and deploying cutting-edge controlled-environment agriculture technologies in the import-dependent and water-scarce Arab Gulf region, it is more important than ever that we have the right human capital in place to achieve our mission. I’m humbled by the quality of talent we are able to attract.”
Zia has over 20 years of commercial experience working with two of the biggest global multinational corporations, Procter & Gamble and Shell, managing multi-billion dollar brands such as Duracell, Head & Shoulders and Olay.
Last year, Pure Harvest Smart Farms secured $50 million in funding through a sukuk (Sharia-compliant bonds) finance solution led by asset management and investment banking platform Shuaa Capital.
Completing the construction of two UAE-based facilities that would enable the technology-enabled agribusiness to produce 75 metric tons of fresh produce a week are among the expansion plans outlined by Kurtz at the time.
Part of the Shuaa-led fund will go towards building a beachhead – a small market with specific characteristics that make it an ideal target to sell a new product or service – in Saudi Arabia which would mark Pure Harvest’s first facility in the kingdom and is expected to be complete in the third quarter of 2021, said Kurtz.
Over time, Pure Harvest intends to locally produce “pretty much everything that can be grown in a Mediterranean environment economically” including aubergine, capsicum and chillies, he added.
Lucio Baron joins Pure Harvest from his position as associate partner in the Dubai office of McKinsey & Company while Fatima Haveliwala was previously senior director of finance at Hala and Gareth Wilson joins from his position as senior project manager at Majid Al Futtaim.
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