Kip Pendleton is the President and CEO of The Pendleton Group, a strategic consulting firm founded to assist leading Ag, Food and emerging AgTech companies develop winning growth strategies across the food chain. Kip is a Champaign County, Illinois, farm kid who has worked to help Leaders Feed the World. He is a six-time CEO in agriculture and 12-time Board Member serving six times as Chairman or Executive Chairman. He has played a leadership role in bringing private and public institutions game changing industry innovation in GMO in seed, the use of the internet, broadband, precision ag, biologicals, AI and bioenergy.

His father Dr. Johnny W. Pendleton was named the Agronomist of the 1960’s at the University of Illinois and recognized globally for his efforts to help farmers feed the world in the US and with the Ford Rockefeller Research Institutes IRRI in the Philippines and IITA in Nigeria. Kip grew up learning first-hand the need for and impact of technology and production systems to return ROI to producers of all sizes.

Kip is current Executive Chairman of PermanentFarming and Board Chairman of Jord BioScience and was founder and CEO for the first five years of the company. He was president and CEO and senior vice president of Agriculture for DTN and helped TBG, a Family Office in Zurich, acquire the company for $900 million, the second largest Ag Tech acquisition behind the Monsanto acquisition of Climate Corporation. He was senior vice president and general manager of Agriculture at Hemisphere GPS; founder, president, CEO, and chairman of DirectAg, the first e-commerce company in agriculture; and then president and co-CEO of Agristar, the company that acquired DirectAg. He worked 18 years in the seed industry with leading public companies including Dupont Pioneer, Syngenta Northrup King, and Dow AgroSciences Mycogen Seeds as seed moved from genetic commodities to technology delivery systems. He has been a part of value creation through He has helped raise more than $100 million in capital; and executed and implemented 39 acquisitions and ten divestments in Ag and Technology to create value. He was named the 2001 Ag Communicator of the year by NAMA for his leadership around the use of the internet in agriculture.

Kip has served as an outside independent director with Spensa Technologies out of Purdue University, which he helped capitalize and sell to DTN. He successful served as executive chairman and interim CEO of Legacy Seed Companies and transitioned to Tillridge Private Equity Group. As Executive Chairman at Farmobile he developed a successful capital structure and exit to Ag Growth, Inc (AGI). As Executive Chairman of NewInsights he executed an exit to VYLA. He was on the Cox Family Holdings Board, Chairing the Ag Tech Committee and oversaw sale of Exacto to S2G; he continued on the Exacto Board for one year. He has served as a strategic advisor to seven Private Equity Groups and family offices including Norwest Equity Partners (NEP), Paine Schwartz, Banneker Partners, TBG and DTN, DN2K, Hummingbird Technologies, Power Pollen, Sentera and ClimateAi. He has worked with Deere, Anterra Capital, TELUS Ag, Agrian, Ag Leader and Tribine on strategy and leadership coaching. He has consulted to serve clients of the Context Network, Beck Ag and BCG including Bayer, BASF, Syngenta, Dow AgroSciences, Trimble, Kubota, and Mahindra.

Pendleton has a B.S. in Agronomy and Ag Economics from University of Wisconsin, Master Studies in Plant Physiology from the University of Illinois and holds an M.B.A. in Finance from the University of St. Thomas. He has participated in the Harvard Agribusiness Program and The Center for Creative Leadership Executive Curriculum. A two-time NCCA Hockey Champion at Wisconsin he loves to help clients win and create high impact results.