Kelly Ward has over a decade of experience in strategy, business development, and project management roles, working in seven countries: Indonesia, Bangladesh, Jordan, Peru, South Africa, Ethiopia, and the United States. She was formerly the Director of Projects at IUNU, where she helps bring advanced agriculture technology to indoor farms across the world. She is currently the President and Co-Owner with her brother, Kiffin, of Ward Manufacturing, a niche metallurgy high-end laser production company. At the core of Kelly's projects were IUNU’s AI-driven LUNA platform which allows growers to develop a feedback loop between capturing data and managing processes to create precise, predictable production, and IUNU’s Cultivation Management Platform, which helps growers manage people, plants, process, and compliance all in one place to de-risk their operation.
Kelly has an MPA from Columbia University’s, School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA), focused on agricultural supply chains. Her family farm inspires her interest in helping agriculture companies scale by developing partnerships and managing strategic projects to improve production, supply chain efficiency, quality, and sustainability.
Kelly previously worked as a business development consultant for an aeroponic vertical farm and several food tech startups across the United States. Working with the International Research Institute for Climate and Society, Kelly co-led the launch of Columbia University's "Columbia World Projects - Adapting Agriculture to Climate Today, for Tomorrow” program in Addis, Ethiopia. There she conducted and presented supply chain analyses to the World Bank, the UN, and the federal government of Ethiopia to improve technology and leverage climate data to maximize food production, reduce crop loss, increase sustainability, and meet their national climate targets. In Cape Town, South Africa, Kelly consulted for local social enterprises and designed a pilot for an aquaponics program and a community nutrition program. She worked for Nobel Laureate Dr. Muhammad Yunus at Grameen Bank's Yunus Centre in Dhaka, Bangladesh, focused on microfinace for farmers and small business owners. There she co-authored a report on Grameen Bank's Village Banking Model to inform microfinance replicators. She also earned a certificate in Grameen Bank’s credit delivery-recovery mechanism, focusing on loan management and utilization assessments.
Outside of agriculture, Kelly was the Development and Planning Officer on the Strategies and Partnerships team at ICAP, Mailman School of Public Health in New York City. In Ubud, Indonesia, Kelly developed and implemented finance management and career readiness curricula for teenagers in state custody. She was also a primatologist studying captive Western Lowland Gorillas as well as researching the ecology and biology of three species of wild primates in the Peruvian Amazon. The family of Emperor Tamarin's she studied starred in BBC One's "Monkey Planet" documentary.
Full disclosure, Kelly is my son's wife, hence my daughter-in-law, who I adore and admire. I always knew my son would attract a “military brat,” rodeo barrel racing farm girl who uses power tools, plays the Celtic fiddle, was a member of her University's ballroom dancing team, who loves all animals, and who would send me an attachment telling me that she was fulfilling one of her childhood dreams while in Addis, Ethiopia, and it turned out to be a picture of her surrounded by the famed hyenas of Harare, who learned Arabic so she could help Syrian and Iraqi refugees in Jordan, and shares my son's passion for the Patriots.
