Impact Ag Partners: Hugh Killen and Bert Glover on their new roles

Hugh Killen has taken on a new role as the boss of an innovative and fast-growing asset management company predicated on the future of the agriculture sector.

Hugh Killen with Impact Ag Partners founder and outgoing boss Bert Glover. Picture: Simon Scott

The new boss of fast-growing agriculture asset management company Impact Ag Partners has a vision for the future of the business – which currently has $900m in assets under management – and the agriculture sector.

Hugh Killen was announced as the new chief executive late last year and, after stints as CEO of AACo, and most recently chair of London-based Climate Asset Management, will assume his role next month.

Founder and outgoing boss Bert Glover will move on to lead Impact Ag’s ambitious new US expansion effort after nine years heading the efforts in Australia.

Sustainability and regenerative agriculture are areas of specialty for Killen, so Impact Ag, which trades in carbon and boasts a 2 per cent increase in soil carbon sequestration across the half-­million acres under management in Australia and the US, was a perfect fit.

“I’m super excited about the new role,” Mr Killen said. “Who I choose to work with is very important, as well as strategy – I’ve worked with Bert for a long time and I’m a director of the company already.”

“I’m a big believer in the ­business.”

Mr Killen sees significant opportunity for investors in the growth of sustainable farming practices, with his idea of the “farm of the ­future” having a mix of renewable, regenerative and climate-friendly practices.

“I’ve never thought profit and purpose are enemies,” he said.

“I think there’s an opportunity for ag that is here and now to actually build itself for a better future – not just sustainably but also with a transition to regenerative practices, which is the theme globally at the minute.

“That’s not to say that farmers are doing a poor job, there’s just a different way to do it and we can be a part of that change.”

Hugh Killen, left, will take over the role left by Bert Glover, right, as he seeks to expand Impact Ag Partners into the US market. Picture: Simon Scott

Typically, successful regenerative agriculture projects use less water and prevent land degradation, critical to securing the ­future of food supply and so an obvious future-investor opportunity for Mr Killen and Impact Ag.

“When you overlay the fact that food demand is going to double by 2030, pressure is greater,” Mr Killen said.

“And I want to help give Australian farmers that opportunity and build the farm of the future, and for us, as farmers, to get paid for what we’ve always done … get paid for stewardship of the land.”

As for Mr Glover, the appointment of Mr Killen is a coup, and allows him to continue growing the business he started and cultivated.

“We always hoped this business would get to here in due course,” Mr Glover said. “The investment community would realise the role of capital to address climate change and farmers would still be able to produce food and fibre. We just didn’t know if it was going to happen sooner or later, but the timing is right.”

And the move to the US, where the company already has land under management, including a recently purchased ranch in southern Montana, is the next step in realising Mr Glover’s goal for the company of $4bn under management by 2030.

“One of the reasons [for the US expansion] is we believe some of the innovation that comes out of Australian agriculture and some of the approaches are very transferable, and we believe US agriculture hasn’t adopted some of those practices that help thrive good environmental outcomes and good economic outcomes, so there’s a huge opportunity in the US to practice ag like we do and do it at scale,” he said. “With US investors there’s more competition for capital but a bigger pool, so there’s multiple ways to attract capital and deploy that money.

“We felt the right sort of capital could catalyse change and we thought capital was a great mechanism in investing in agriculture and real assets was a way of having global impact, but still have that innovation and still produce food and fibre and address future generations’ problems.”