Our Team

The Food System 6 team is a passionate group of food-industry change-agents working together to support the FS6 mission and entrepreneurs. You can learn more about what we're working on and where we came from by navigating to the Linkedin profiles connected to each team member.

Caesaré Assad
Chief Executive Officer

Caesare's 20+ years of food work as a restaurant cook, chef, entrepreneur, and business executive spans entity types and functions - all centered around healing connections through food and building community. Some of her work includes developing innovative culinary, nutrition, and wellness initiatives for corporate clients that include Whole Foods Market, Tesla, SpaceX, and Clif Bar.

She grew up in rural Oklahoma and that experience has made her especially passionate about surfacing and supporting food and agriculture issues that impact rural, oppressed, and marginalized communities. 

In her role at FS6, she is able to combine her professional and personal experiences with her wonderful community, and creativity - all in support of incredible entrepreneurs who are creating a better food system every day. She believes that collaboration is the key to success and is eager to share our learnings with other advocates for change.

Perri Kramer
Program Director

Perri has led Marketing and Operation teams, as well as product launches, in the organic food industry for over a decade. Prior to joining Food System 6, Perri worked for Whole Foods Market, Revolution Foods, and for restaurant and food marketing consultancies. An early passion for cooking led her to study food equity and farming and ultimately to build a career working with ethical businesses that support sustainable food systems.  Still a deeply invested home cook and avid dinner party host, Perri brings communities together by celebrating good food and, in her free time, develops recipes for a local community supported fishery. Perri holds B.A. degrees from The Colorado College in History & Political Science as well as a concentration in Agro-Ecology.

Melissa Rouse
Communications Director

Melissa is a writer and editor with a passion for food system change. She is dedicated to supporting small and mid-sized organizations with big-picture plans for the betterment of local and global food communities.

Growing up in a beekeeping family on the Big Island of Hawaii, Melissa has been immersed in the food and agriculture world since day one - and has been captivated by the challenges and opportunities that this industry creates. By turning her editorial background towards the FoodAg space, Melissa has been able to combine her skill and passion; she is excited to be partnering with Food System 6 as they work to transform the traditional structures of this age-old industry.

Melissa has a Bachelor’s degree in English Literature and Critical Social Thought from Mount Holyoke College, where she graduated Magna Cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa.

Allison Hagey
Board Member

Allison Roseman Hagey is a partner in the Corporate Practice Group at BraunHagey & Borden. Allison has over 15 years of experience in food law, policy, regulation, and food systems. She has represented Fortune 100 companies in international and national disputes and Department of Justice hearings. She has an extensive track record developing large-scale projects in the food and agriculture sector including creating and implementing federal policies generating over $1 billion in investment in over 200 food businesses. Allison is a graduate of University of Texas School of Law.

Peter Herz
Co-Founder, CFO & Board Member

Peter is a serial entrepreneur, board member and advisor to early stage companies. He is also a General Partner at 1st Course Capital, an early stage venture fund in food and agriculture.

He was forced to confront his relationship to food due to a set of chronic medical conditions.  By turning his attention to food and agriculture he was able to address these conditions without medication, and is now committed to addressing the root causes for poor health that lie within the current food system. 

He previously served as CEO of irisnote, a SaaS based application provider for scientists to manage their research, interim President of the biological simulation company Entelos, and founding CEO of 3ware, a revolutionary data storage company sold to AMCC.  Prior to co-founding 3ware, Peter ran North American Consulting for Synopsys and managed customer engineering for Siemens Semiconductor’s (now Infineon Technologies AG) North American embedded control business. He has broad international experience including a startup in Munich, Germany and managing sales and partnerships in both Europe and Asia.  Peter also serves as a member of the board of directors of Kendall Investments, a private equity fund-of-funds company and previously IPextreme, Inc., a semiconductor intellectual property company.

He holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering and Mathematics from Carnegie Mellon University and completed A-levels at Eastbourne College, Sussex, United Kingdom.

Sara Ahmed Holman
Board Member

Sara has a deep passion for food, agriculture, and sustainability. At Innovation Endeavors, she leads Farm2050 -  an ecosystem that seeks to alleviate the impending global food challenge by creating cross-sector partnerships. Sara has deep expertise in startups and is passionate about helping them to think strategically about growth and operations. Previously, she was Associate General Counsel at Lookout, and before that Corporate Counsel for Weebly (acquired by Square). After attending UCLA's School of Law where she was a research assistant for the first food law treatise (Food Law in the United States), her legal career started at Bryan Cave where she helped launch the Food & Beverage Team. Sara has served as a legal expert on food labeling issues for the media, litigated and authored amicus briefs for food cases in Ninth Circuit, and counseled all sized food and agriculture companies. Before becoming a lawyer, Sara was awarded the Coro Fellowship in Public Affairs where she focused on creating joint ventureships between the private and public sectors, including specific projects with the FBI, Department of Homeland Security, and the City of NY.  In her spare time, Sara loves to practice yoga, cook, and spend time with her daughter.

Renske Lynde
Co-Founder & Board President

Renske has worked in the non-profit sector on food, agriculture and nutrition policy and issues for nearly 20 years.  Her work has included grassroots education and community organizing, strategic campaign development, quantitative policy analysis and legislative advocacy. 

She began her career in Minneapolis, Minnesota at the Institute for Agriculture & Trade Policy working on behalf of small-scale sustainable agriculture producers and went on to build direct markets for Pennsylvania farmers in the Philadelphia marketplace.  Renske subsequently directed Advocacy and Research for the San Francisco Food Bank working primarily on cross-sector partnerships to improve the federal food stamp and school lunch programs.

Today, she is a General Partner at 1st Course Capital, an early stage venture fund in food and agriculture.

Renske holds BA degrees from Boston University in Political Science and Psychology and a Masters in Public Policy from UC Berkeley’s Goldman School of Public Policy.