Mr. Heckman has more than 30 years of experience in the agriculture, energy and food processing industries. He is Founding Partner of Flatwater Partners and served as CEO of The Gavilon Group from 2008 to 2015. During his time at Gavilon, he led the company through a period of considerable growth in both the agriculture and energy industries prior to the eventual sale of the agriculture business to Marubeni Corporation and the energy business to NGL Energy Partners. Prior to that, he served as Chief Operating Officer of ConAgra Foods Commercial Products and President and COO of ConAgra Trade Group.
Mr. Heckman also serves as a non-executive director on the Board of Directors of OCI NV, a global producer of fertilizer and chemicals and serves on the North America Agribusiness Advisory Board of Rabobank, the NYSE Board Advisory Council and the Aksarben Foundation Board of Governors. Mr. Heckman holds a B.S. in agriculture economics and marketing from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
He started his career at Bunge in 2015 as the Vice President, Global Oils segment. In his current role, he leads our specialty oils and fats, corn milling and plant-based protein businesses. Prior to joining Bunge, he worked at Cargill for 19 years in a variety of commercial, finance and general management leadership roles in the US, Russia, and China. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Accounting and Computer Science from the University of Northern Iowa and earned an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.
As a member of the Bunge team for more than 15 years, he has held a variety of commercial leadership positions in Asia, Europe and the U.S. Prior to Bunge, he served in trading roles at Cargill in the U.S. He holds a B.A. from Dartmouth College and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School. He also serves on the Board of Directors of Lamb Weston, a NYSE company.
He joined Bunge in 2004 and most recently served as President, Global Supply Chains where he was responsible for management of Bunge’s physical and cross border flows. In his current position, he co-leads Bunge’s global agribusiness segment with primary responsibility for global flows, distribution markets and Bunge’s operations in Europe and Asia. Prior to joining Bunge, he held roles of increasing responsibility in Europe and the United States with Tradigrain and Intrade Risk Management. He holds a bachelor’s degree from HEC Lausanne in Business Management & Marketing.
He joined Bunge in 2002 as a Financial Analyst in Argentina and has held a number of roles across Finance, Commercial and Business Development in Argentina and Brazil. In his current position, he co-leads Bunge’s global agribusiness segment with primary responsibility for industrial operations, business development, and Bunge’s commercial operations in the Americas. Prior to joining Bunge, he worked for PriceWaterhouseCoopers and as an auditor for Argentina’s Foreign Affairs Office. He earned his bachelor’s degree from the Universidad National de Mar del Plata and has masters’ degrees in Finance & Accounting and Economics from the Palermo University.
She leads Bunge’s Business Technology organization which is committed to transforming the company by applying technology, data and analytics.
Prior to joining Bunge, Debra served as Chief Information Officer at Corteva, where she led the IT spin from DowDuPont, built a technology foundation for the new company and founded the enterprise digital transformation program, creating cloud-based services, advanced analytics and data-driven capabilities to enable key internal and customer-facing strategies. Previously, she spent 15 years at Pfizer in a range of IT leadership roles across business domains, managing IT organizations and operations at scale, and leading numerous global transformation programs. She started her career in technology consulting before moving into industry.
Debra holds a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from Yeshiva University. She is on the Board of Directors of NPower, an organization dedicated to launching digital careers for military veterans and those in underserved communities. She recently joined the board of TruU and has also served on numerous venture capital advisory boards.
He started his career at Bunge in 2013 as Chief Development Officer, having previously been a partner at McKinsey & Company, where from 2009 to 2013 he led the firm’s agriculture service line in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. His work included managing client relationships with leading global companies in the commodity processing and trading, agrochemicals and fertilizer sectors, as well as with governments. He previously was a partner in the firm’s consumer goods practice, having joined McKinsey as an associate in 2000. Prior to that, he worked as an auditor at Nestlé and KPMG. He has a BSc in economics and business finance from Brunel University in the UK and an MBA from INSEAD.
He joined Bunge from Green Plains Inc., where he served as Chief Financial Officer. Prior to Green Plains, Mr. Neppl served as chief financial officer of The Gavilon Group, LLC, an agriculture and energy commodities management firm with an extensive global footprint. Mr. Neppl held senior financial management positions at ConAgra Foods, Inc., including senior financial officer of ConAgra Trade Group and Commercial Products division as well as assistant corporate controller. Prior to ConAgra, Mr. Neppl was corporate controller at Guarantee Life Companies. He began his career as an auditor with Deloitte & Touche. He is a member of the Creighton University Heider College of Business Dean's Advisory Board. Mr. Neppl earned his Bachelor of Science degree in business administration with a major in accounting from Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska. He is also a certified public accountant (inactive status).
He joined Bunge from Nutrien Ltd. where he was Executive Vice President and Chief Legal Officer. He was previously Senior Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary with PotashCorp, where he was responsible for delivery of legal services and the corporate compliance program, in addition to corporate governance processes in his role as corporate secretary. Before joining PotashCorp, Mr. Podwika worked in the legal department of International Paper Company in Memphis, Tennessee and was in private practice with Jaeckle, Fleischmann & Mugel in Buffalo, New York. He earned an English degree with highest honors at State University of New York at Buffalo and a Juris Doctorate from Northwestern University School of Law. He is a member of the American and Canadian bar associations, the Association of Corporate Counsel and the U.S. and Canadian societies of corporate secretaries and governance professionals.
She has more than 20 years of experience leading Human Resources at large global companies as they build the diverse talent and capabilities needed to grow the business. She has served as Chief Human Resources Officer of several companies in the health industry including Allergan, Asklepios BioPharmaceutical and most recently BeautyHealth. She spent more than 13 years at Pfizer in a number of leadership roles including serving as Senior Director of Global HR Shared Services where she was responsible for the strategy, design and implementation of a shared services model. She began her career in finance, holding several positions in accounting before transitioning into Human Resources.
She graduated from the University of Missouri – St. Louis with a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration.
Robert Wagner was most recently based in Houston as Chief Risk Officer at Tricon International, Ltd., with global responsibility and leadership of the company’s risk management team. Prior to Tricon, he was Group Chief Risk Officer at COFCO Agri Ltd in Geneva, Switzerland, where he was responsible for leading a team to build and provide world-class risk oversight across the company’s global operations. Prior to COFCO, he held the Chief Risk Officer position for The Gavilon Group, LLC, where he was member of the firm’s Executive Committee and had responsibility for both the market risk management and credit departments. Mr. Wagner earned his B.S. degree in international business from Minnesota State University at Moorhead and a Master of Science degree in agricultural economics from North Dakota State University. He also holds an MBA from Creighton University. He is a former member of the Board of Trustees at The Brownell Talbot School in Omaha, Nebraska where he served as Treasurer and Chair of the Finance Committee.
Prior to joining Bunge, she worked in leadership positions in a variety of legal, finance, and commercial roles at Tyson Foods and ADM, among others. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science from Hendrix College and a Juris Doctorate from the University of Arkansas School of Law.
He has provided his risk management expertise to Bunge in a number of roles, most recently as an advisor to the CEO as he transitioned from active supervision as President, Risk Management in March 2022. Mr. Zachman joined Bunge from Millennium Limited Partners where he traded agricultural commodity derivatives as a portfolio manager since 2014. Prior to that he was a Portfolio Manager with SAC Capital from 2012 to 2014, and has served in various commercial, merchant and trading roles with Cargill, ConAgra and Bunge. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from the University of Minnesota-Duluth.
