The right team

Date of Appointment: November 2019

Jeffrey Hovey joined the Company as Chief Financial Officer in September 2013.

He became an Executive Director in November 2019. He has over 25 years’ financial management experience and is a CPA with IFRS and US GAAP experience. Jeffrey Hovey has held numerous senior financial and accounting roles in private and publicly listed retail, life sciences and technology companies. While with a regional office supply company, he led the accounting and financial due diligence effort which ultimately led to the sale of the company to an international office supply company.

Date of Appointment: November 2019

Jeff has been with Plant Health Care since October 2017. In 2019, Jeff was promoted to Chief Operating Officer and Executive Board member after leading the growth of the Commercial business in North and South America. Under Jeff’s leadership, the go-to-market strategy was transformed to align Plant Health Care’s technology with several of the largest distributors globally to broaden market access for Harpin αβ.

Recent growth of the North American Commercial business has been due to several exclusive distribution agreements signed for Harpin αβ. The first was signed with a leading supplier to the USA corn grower market, which has given the Group access to the 90 million-acre USA corn market. The second agreement was with Wilbur-Ellis, one of the largest USA agriculture distributors, for applications to specialty crops (fruits and vegetables) which comprises more than 7 million acres in the USA. Since 2019, these two agreements have delivered a Harpin αβ revenue CAGR of 53% and $2.4 million of revenue in 2021.

Jeff also led the commercialisation and launch of Saori™ as a seed treatment for soybeans in Brazil. Saori™ is the first product from the Group’s PREtec platform to be brought to market, and Brazil is the largest producer of soybeans in the world. Saori™ was approved for sale in January 2021 for the control of Asian soybean rust, after only 12 months of government regulatory evaluation. This unusually short evaluation period was because of Saori’s™ effectiveness and sustainability profile. Through Jeff’s leadership, the Group has secured a distribution agreement with Nutrien Ag Solutions, the world’s largest provider of crop inputs and services.

Jeff also led the Group’s goal of rationalising its supply chain and driving down its manufacturing costs. To this end, in 2021 he signed a production and supply agreement with a leading EU-based fermentation company. This has secured production capacity of PHC279, the active ingredient in Saori™, to meet projected global demand. Volume production cost targets were met, ensuring an attractive gross margin for the Company while still delivering an attractive return on investment for soybean farmers in Brazil.

Jeff brings 30+ years of technical, product development, sales management, and executive leadership to the Plant Health Care team. Jeff holds a Bachelor’s of Science and Master of Science from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale.