Prior to Mercaris, Kellee spent five years at the start-up company Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX), the first electronic trading platform and registry for spot, futures and options on carbon, sulfur, clean energy and other environmental derivatives. In 2009 she was appointed by President Barack Obama as a White House Fellow and was Crain’s Chicago Business Magazine ’40 under 40’ rising leader.

Previously, Kellee worked with commodity banks in Latin America on risk management and income diversification strategies. Kellee is an Aspen Institute Catto Environmental Fellow and has also served on the board of Net Impact, a membership organization of more than 12,000 MBA professionals committed to sustainability through corporate responsibility. Kellee received her MBA and MA in International Development from American University in Washington, D.C., and completed a BA in Spanish from the University of Kentucky.

Former Founder and CTO of an online supplement company, Campus Protein, and a life-long coder; Mike has spent his entire career in the tech start-up world. He graduated from Indiana University with a B.A in Economics. At Indiana University he was also the winner of the 2012 Indiana University 'Best' competition for aspiring start-ups.

Since starting his own company, Mike has worked for startups in various industries including Small Business Insurance and Real Estate. Mike was on the forefront of analytics on the housing market; even guest speaking at the University of Chicago for classes on Predictive Analytics.

With more than six years' experience providing custom market analytics and strategic pricing forecasts to stakeholders in the agricultural supply chain, Ryan brings a wealth of knowledge and insight to the Mercaris team.

Previously with IHS Markit, Ryan developed econometric models forecasting US and global agricultural markets for top global agriculture businesses. While studying Agricultural Economics, Ryan joined IHS Markit as a graduate research assistant, before being promoted to Senior Economist, focusing on delivering livestock, dairy, and biofuels market analytics.

Ryan has also produced research focusing on the impacts of weather, technology, policy, trade, population demographics, and culture on global agricultural markets. Ryan studied economics at Missouri State University and the University of Missouri-Columbia.

Ryan Miller has over 13 years of experience in product and software development with a focus on creating a cohesive user experience for the customer. Prior to Mercaris, Ryan was the Director of Product Development at TTI Success Insights, where he led the product management and design for customer platforms, personalized reports, and administrative platforms. He was also previously a software developer, where he focused on user experience and internationalization of platforms and personalized reports.

Ryan graduated from the University of Northern Iowa with a double major in Management Information Systems and Marketing: Sales and Advertising.

Alberto comes to Mercaris with almost a decade of sales experience and with 6 years of experience in Market Intelligence for commodities. Upon graduating from St. Joseph’s College (Indiana) with degrees in Business Administration and International Studies, Alberto began his career as a Corporate Account Manager at CDW tasked with selling technology products and services to small businesses in the Midwest.

He most recently comes from Fastmarkets, a division of Euromoney Institutional Investor, where he individually managed various sales territories from Canada down to Argentina as a Senior Business Development Manager before leading the Metals & Mining subscription sales team for North & South America to consistent double digit growth year over year. Alberto has helped his clients across various industries in making confident data-driven purchasing decisions by providing valuable IOSCO compliant Market Intelligence Solutions.

Outside of work, Alberto can be found spending time with his wife and daughters as well as playing soccer on the weekends.

With nearly seven years of marketing and communications experience in both healthcare and natural resource management, Lynsey was thrilled to join the team at Mercaris with the goal of sharing market opportunities available to organic and non-GMO stakeholders.

Lynsey grew up on a diversified forage and beef cattle operation in the Florida Panhandle before attending Texas Tech University to earn her B.S. in Agricultural Communications. She has a passion for sharing the stories of agricultural allies and helping to put valuable tools in the hands of those who can make a difference in the agriculture industry.

A resident of the Oklahoma Panhandle, Lynsey enjoys spending time with her two Corgis, German Shepherd and husband either in the great outdoors or managing their small herd of registered Red Angus cattle.

Darby Aherin comes to Mercaris with experience in the agricultural industry in both the grain and beef sectors. Born on a small livestock farm in Missouri, Darby grew up active in 4-H and showing livestock. She attended Kansas State University and received her B.S. in Agribusiness with a focus in Strategic Sales. She has experience marketing corn and soybeans on behalf of farmers and working on behalf of the beef checkoff.

Darby lives in the Denver, Colorado area with her husband and her dog Willie. In her free time she enjoys attending K-State football games and going hiking in the mountains.

Alexander Schultz comes to Mercaris with experience in economic analysis of agricultural markets and policy. He attended the University of Minnesota where he received his B.S. in Applied Economics. From there he went on to Cornell University, where he received his M.S. in Applied Economics and Management with a concentration in Food and Agricultural Economics. During his time at Cornell he interned at the USDA's Economic Research Service where he worked on improvements to forecasting methodology.

After completing his graduate education, Alexander went to work at Dairy Farmers of America as a Market Intelligence Analyst. There he performed market analysis of dairy and energy markets to inform risk management, procurement, and strategic decision-making.

Abbey Edel joins Mercaris with a diverse background in the agriculture and tech worlds. After studying Agricultural Business at Iowa State University, Abbey worked in the conventional ag sector with Corteva AgriScience as a Territory Sales Professional. She continued her strategic sales career at Socio, a tech company in the Indianapolis area as an Account Executive and later, a Strategic Team Lead focusing on developing sales processes for renewing customers.

Wanting to get back into agriculture, Abbey joined AgriSecure LLC and helped growers achieve and retain organic certification as well as other certifications like Non-GMO and Certified Regenerative. After getting a taste of the Non-GMO and Organic sectors, Abbey chose to join Mercaris as our Manager of Data Initiatives to encourage first handlers, farmers and certifiers to join the survey and create more market transparency.

Coming from the Fintech industry with a background in Fullstack development and a B.S.E. in Computer Systems Engineering from Arizona State University, Aram Martinez joins Mercaris to further improve, optimize and secure the platform.

Since graduation from university Aram has taken an interest in Software As A Service platforms and has been working in this software subsector for years. Aram comes to Mercaris with experience in software and product development, system and database architecture as well as front-end and back-end design and implementation.

With a passion for the industry that started in her early childhood years on a small family sweet corn patch, Maurissa comes to Mercaris excited to continue serving within the agriculture sector.

Maurissa attended Purdue University where she received her B.S. in Agriculture Economics, Sales and Marketing. Upon graduating she spent time as an independent contractor for Climate FieldView working specifically with producers to help them maximize their return acre per acre. Previously Maurissa worked for the United States Department of Agriculture at the Farm Service Agency facilitating government programs.

Maurissa joins Mercaris as our Market Research Analyst and will be focusing on our food grade survey.