FS6 Team

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.

Andrew FAlcon
Entrepreneur In Residence

Andrew brings extensive commercial, operations, and entrepreneurial expertise to his role as Entrepreneur in Residence at Food System 6. Andrew’s work in biomaterials, packaging, organic waste valorization, and international development, together with his roots in Midwestern family-farming, combine to give him a unique perspective on the intersection of food/agriculture and adjacent sectors at the systems level.

Andrew is passionate in his belief that circular, regenerative solutions are essential for the long-term health of the planet, and that entrepreneurs, innovation and markets have the best chance to catalyze system-level change. Andrew lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife and two children, often can be found behind a grill at home or at the family farm in Iowa, and holds a BA in International Relations from Stanford University and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Learn more about Andrew on his LinkedIn.

Christine Su
Entrepreneur in residence

Christine is the former CEO and co-founder of PastureMap, a grazing management software company used on over 6 million acres globally, to help ranchers increase profitability while building healthy grasslands. Christine built the company from zero to profitability, and a successful exit to SoilWorks Natural Capital. She serves on the board of Kitchen Table Advisors, a California nonprofit serving 80%+ women farmers and farmers of color.

Learn more about Christine on her LinkedIn.

Ethan Rublee
ENTREPRENEUR IN RESIDENCE

Ethan is a serial entrepreneur, technologist, aspiring farmer and, is passionate about applying computer vision, machine learning and robotics to empower farmers and local food systems to heal people and the planet. Ethan has worked in Silicon Valley for the past decade, developing open source computer vision software Willow Garage, making robots unload trucks and move pallets around a warehouse at Google, and providing machine learning based tools for artists in Hollywood. In 2020, Ethan moved his family to an 11 acre upstart farm in Watsonville, CA- just an hour and a world away from Silicon Valley. Ethan is currently running an online farmers market on the Central Coast, and founding his next company on the farm- farm-ng inc. with a focus of bringing low-cost robotics to farmers everywhere.

Learn more about Ethan on his LinkedIn.