Meet Our Team

It takes an unusual person to lead top-notch research on the next generation of crop technologies, and an experienced sales strategist to position those offerings in a way that excites customers. Robin is that one-in-a million professional agronomist who can fill both the “scientist” and “sales strategist” roles while simultaneously delivering strategic market insights that shape the future of the business.

In her time with Acadian Plant Health, Robin played an integral role in establishing company credibility as a world leader in the bio-stimulant field and was a key scientist on the commercial launch of new products with global impact. Her talents in marketing innovation lead major change in science culture and improve field studies as well as using science to equip a more informed and persuasive sales force.

Earlier in her career, Robin managed the field research and development in California for Eden Bioscience. This research provided critical tools that helped launch harpin protein technology in the high-value agricultural market segment, leading to the successful sale of the technology to Plant Health Care in 2007.

Robin has also been a quota-carrying sales executive. At Novartis Crop Protection (Now Syngenta) she was hired specifically because of her strong technical acumen to launch 2 new fungicides and 2 new insecticides for high value crops in California. She surpassed all annual sales goals and grew the California territory by 60% in a two-year period. This experience uniquely equipped her as a scientist to always have an eye on the customer and what they need.

Robin holds a master’s degree in plant pathology with a minor in experimental statistics from Clemson University and is passionate about elicited crop responses and their role in improving crop yields.

The transition from dusty boots to boardroom suits is nothing new for Annalisa Williams. As an experienced consultative sales and strategy professional, Annalisa prides herself on being just as confident problem solving alongside growers out in the field as developing and presenting “bite-sized” and grower relevant nuggets of technical data to key decision makers. Her keen intuition fosters her outside the box approach to unique market strategy, product placement and value selling principles.

In her prior role with Acadian Plant Health, Annalisa Williams developed and managed Specialty Crop Corporate Grower portfolios. Out of a need to become seamlessly integrated with large end users, Annalisa let this initiative providing technical and consultative sales services to a portfolio of more sophisticated end user customers. Her experience also includes strategy creation and execution for pull through demand activities. Within 12 months, she cultivated a portfolio with exposure to over 300K acres in California alone by shifting the nature of this business from being distribution directed to grower driven.

Annalisa also served as a Key Account Manager on the coast of California where she partnered with distribution to create product programs to cross sell key value products under one branded program. During this time, She grew sales volumes 8x over 5 years. International Marketing Coordinator, Social Media Consultant and Assistant Vice President / Ag Lending Officer round out Annalisa’s robust career experiences.

Annalisa holds an MS in Agriculture Science and a BS in Agriculture Business from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. She is a Certified Crop Advisor. She lives in Arroyo Grande, CA on their family homestead with her husband and daughter, two horses, two dogs and two goats – aptly named the “Funny Farm.”