Meet the Team
When six veterans of the wellness industry, Blake Johnson, Grant, Ferrier, Gillian Christie, Michael Hammer, Emily Drown, and Samuil Maheshvari, learned about Aronia, they knew they had a star on their hands. The team launched A3, the American Aronia Accelerator, a network of American farmers producing superfood ingredients derived from the Aronia berry. A3’s mission is to popularize the Midwestern crop by giving both farmers and manufacturers a domestic option to quickly get their product to market.
Blake Johnson
Blake is the founder and CEO of A3, and is an engineer by trade and an entrepreneur by passion. He brought the first U.S. Aronia berry enriched beverage to market, ax-water. He is currently serving as a partner in the American Aronia Accelerator, BetterWorks (which is a new Aronia functional beverage) and works in the agricultural and biosystems engineering field. He volunteers on the NDSU Agricultural engineering advisory board, and was a featured speaker at 1 Million Cups.
Grant Ferrier
Grant is the Founder of Nutrition Capital Network (NCN), an organization that connects investors with early-stage companies and technology in the nutrition and health and wellness industry. He also founded and ran Nutrition Business Journal from 1996-2007, selling both NBJ and NCN to New Hope Natural Media. He’s served as a lead consultant or principal advisor on proprietary consulting, research, and strategy development assignments in the nutrition and environmental industries, and as a third-party advisor for more than 15 financing and M&A transactions representing both buyers and sellers. Since 1998, he has acted as an independent investor making investments in 17 companies. He has also served as a board member for eight companies besides his own, and is chairman of three.
Gillian Christie
Gillian has been helping ethical companies grow for more than 30 years. With experience in a wide variety of industries, Gillian has successfully marketed numerous companies, technologies, and products through innovative, integrated campaigns.
Michael Hammer
Michael is a beverage startup entrepreneur and early-stage investment advisor. He has amassed 15 years with PepsiCo, and most recently serves as the Senior Director with PepsiCo Ventures. He is a founding member of the Ready-to-Drink Coffee Joint Venture between PepsiCo and Starbucks, and oversees the PepsiCo Nutrition Greenhouse, an accelerator program pairing startups with capital and PepsiCo executives.
Saumil Maheshvari
With an intuitive grip on the American consumer buying behavior, I'm able to predict consumer shifts, and help companies steer their supply chain to address those shifts. A large part of this is done by deploying our innovative ingredients at Orgenetics, and leveraging the sustainable and transparent supply chains under Orgenetics.
My connections and friends across industries have also helped me gauge markets for timing the right product at the right demographic.
My role at Orgenetics involves both upstream and downstream work to empower farms and farmers to supply higher value crop to consumer companies looking for innovative and functional ingredients: from health benefits to unique flavors and colors.
Emily Drown
Emily spent 27 years in the industrial engineering sector and has since co-founded two companies supporting emerging entrepreneurs in the alternative medical and nutraceutical sector. Her focus is on specialty ingredients and patented technologies in plant-based molecular drug delivery, transitioning the science from the lab to formulators and creating affordable and effective products with safety and wellness foremost in mind.
A3’s Leadership Team Can Help You:
Be the first to offer this innovative superberry in your products
Navigate the supply chain
Decrease costs and footprint
Launch a successful product line
Stay on the pulse of the wellness industry
Let us be your guide to introducing America’s superberry to your customers.