Distinguished Industry Executives with Global Insight

Kincannon & Reed's leadership team offers a unique combination of senior executive search experience plus senior executive success in the food, agribusiness, and life sciences industries. This background not only gives them insight into the business drivers and requirements that characterize our clients' organizations, but also offers the benefit of personal connections with vast numbers of fellow executives in the industries we serve.

• Meet our Management Team

• Meet our Principals

• Meet our Research Team

Gregory J. Duerksen, President. Mr. Duerksen was a senior international executive prior to joining Kincannon & Reed. As CEO, he led the successful turnarounds of a Pepsi-Cola bottling company in Mexico and of Latin America's largest fertilizer producer and exporter. Prior to these posts, he was Vice President, Marketing & Development of Terra Industries, a Fortune 500 NYSE publicly-traded company. There he had broad strategic planning and acquisition responsibilities and led several of the organization's key product lines and directed product development and technical support. As Chairman of the Food Safety Committee of the Chemical Producers & Distributors Association, he twice testified before Congress on food safety issues. In his early career he was a consultant for McKinsey & Company, and as an Associates Fellow wrote case studies for Harvard Business School's acclaimed Agribusiness program. He is fluent in Spanish, received a BA from Augustana College, and holds an MBA from Harvard Business School.
Washington, D.C. area, USA

Michael L. Cooper, CFO & Managing Partner. Mr. Cooper brings his experience as a senior executive in the food, agribusiness and consumer products industries to clients of Kincannon and Reed. Active service as Audit Chairman for a large public food company and his memberships with food industry associations, enable him to keep his finger on the pulse of the protein industry. His current focus includes searches for associations and nonprofit organizations, protein searches (poultry, pork, turkey and beef) and allied suppliers to those industries. Michael also recruits CFO and senior-level financial executives across the food and agribusiness sectors, frequently working with board search committees. Prior to joining Kincannon & Reed in 2004, Michael applied his talent as President and CEO of branded beef products company, Meyer Foods. He served as President of Perdue Farms' Retail products division, and as SVP & GM of the Foodservice and International divisions while concurrently serving as CFO for Perdue Farms' parent company. Before joining Perdue, Michael served as SVP/CFO for Rocco Enterprises, a large privately held turkey products manufacturer. His early career includes fourteen years in various senior general management and financial leadership roles with the Dial Corporation. He began his career as a corporate investment analyst at Hallmark Cards, Inc, in Kansas City. Michael holds a Bachelor of Science in Marketing and an MBA from Arizona State University. He was a licensed Certified Public Accountant in Arizona, Virginia, and Maryland. Phoenix, Arizona, USA

Jon Leafstedt, Managing Partner. Mr. Leafstedt has served in wide-ranging executive roles in global agribusinesses and development-stage technology companies. Most recently, Leafstedt headed Chromatin, Inc., a plant biotechnology firm, leading its successful turnaround. He previously was President & COO of Phytodyne, Inc., another venture capital-backed biotechnology company, responsible for worldwide intellectual property and regulatory efforts for a nutritional ingredient manufacturer, Kemin Industries. Prior to these posts, he led state governmental affairs programs for the agrichemical businesses for BASF/American Cyanamid, preceded by an early career specializing in field sales and marketing management in Cyanamid's animal health products department. A leader in numerous national and state industry organizations, Leafstedt has chaired the Iowa Biotechnology Association and was a committee leader at the Animal Health Institute, American Feed Industry Association, and American Crop Protection Association (now CropLife America). He is an honors graduate of the University of Iowa's MBA program and the Animal Science program at South Dakota State University, and has served as an adjunct professor at the University of Iowa MBA program.
Des Moines, Iowa USA

Dr. Karl Peter Schlichting, Managing Partner. Dr. Schlichting has devoted his career to agribusiness beginning in 1980 when he joined Hoechst AG in Frankfurt. He progressed to become Head of Indication Areas in the Crop Protection Division. After the merger of the agricultural activities of Hoechst AG and Schering AG to form AgrEvo, Dr. Schlichting was appointed Head of International Marketing & Sales, where he supervised product portfolio management, business intelligence, and marketing communications. Later he took over as Regional Director - Asia Pacific, responsible for crop protection, environmental health, seed, and biotechnology businesses, acting as Country Head for Japan and managing 15 Asian countries with more than 3,000 employees. Dr. Schlichting continued this assignment after the formation of Aventis CropScience, integrating the regional organizations of AgrEvo and Rhone Poulenc in Region Asia Pacific. Since leaving Aventis CropScience, he served as CEO of CropDesign, an agricultural biotechnology company based in Ghent, Belgium, where he reshaped the business strategy, raised substantial new capital, and completed a value-creating sale of the company to an industry leader. Dr. Schlichting received his PhD in Agricultural Sciences from the University of Kiel and has attended several senior executive management seminars at IMD in Lausanne, Switzerland.
Frankfurt, Germany

Kelly Kincannon, Chairman & Founder. Mr. Kincannon founded Kincannon & Reed in 1981. Under his vision and leadership, the firm has grown to be one of the world's premier boutique executive search firms. A member of several trade and scientific associations, he has completed 25 consecutive Harvard Business School Agribusiness Senior Executive Seminars. In addition to numerous articles on the art of executive recruitment, in 1995 he collaborated with Texas A&M University to produce the Chief Agribusiness and Food Executive Report, a ground-breaking profile of senior executives in the US food and agribusiness sectors. Mr. Kincannon graduated from Texas A&M University with a BA in Marketing. Early in his career he was a junior executive in the crop input business. Today he leads the company's Board of Directors and Association practices.
Washington, D.C. area, USA